No, not the Gerber kind. Although that reminds me of my obsessive love of the Gerber Plum Tapioca flavor that lasted into my adulthood, or at least until I learned of the phrase “age appropriate”. But I digress.

Parental birds, like human parents, do the “shopping”, “meal prep” and “feeding” of their recently hatched chicks. Those meals vary across species and include everything from seeds to fish and in between.

Large raptors like hawks and eagles typically build their nests high up in trees or cliffs, thus making viewing feeding activity difficult to photograph (in addition to nest ethics I follow)[1]. Instead, I look for parents heading back to the nest with their takeout meal in hand/talons/beak. Here are some examples.

Bald eagles feed the same things to their young as they enjoy – fish. Both Mom and Dad go fishing a couple of times a day and in this example below one of them took a short flight from the nest over to Chatfield Reservoir for dinner that night.

*Photo above* - Bald Eagle in flight with fish in its talons returning to the nest

I spotted a hawk’s nest this Spring way up a tree until Spring did its thing with its attendant foliage blocking any views. I was out at a local pond a block away one day photographing Egrets when I heard Magpies above my head squawking. They were chasing a Red-Tailed Hawk, jealous of its nice catch of a snake. The Hawk was making a beeline to its nest and thanks to those Magpies I quickly got this shot with barely a second to spare. In fact, my settings were still for the Egrets, white birds requiring significant underexposure. Fortunately, I was able to bring up the shadows here on the hawk and get a decent shot.

*Photo above* - Red-Tailed Hawk in flight carrying snake back to its nest

Small birds don’t generally shop for such exotic meals as raptors, but I can photograph the act of feeding, one that always brings a smile. Here’s a Chipping Sparrow parent on my patio carrying a wayward seed to its fledgling baby.

*Photo above* - Adult Chipping Sparrow feeding its baby a seed

Hummingbird babies wait patiently in their nest for Mom to find some insects or nectar for their daily nourishment. Hat-tip again to shooting partner Shelley for finding the location of this nest.

*Photo above* - Baby Hummingbirds in the nest awaiting Mom’s meal

*Photo above* - Momma Hummingbird (likely a Black-Chinned Hummingbird) feeding its two babies in the nest

Like a fireworks show, there is a grand finale. In this case it’s the incomparable (to me, at least) ritual of adult swallows feeding their young’uns. Not only is the act of feeding fascinating to watch, but the babies’ behavior waiting can be downright laugh-out-loud.

My favorite time of growth of swallows is the roughly one week period after the babies leave the nest and are “branching out” sitting and waiting for Mom or Dad to do their best Door Dash impression. They sit on tree or bush branches generally overlooking a body of water where their parents can snag unsuspecting flying insects like damselflies skimming just above the water. While the parents hunt for roughly two minutes, the babies will sometimes yap at each other or appear to “play” by tugging each other’s feathers. They also jockey for position on the various branches to be more easily seen by a feeding parent who has to decide which baby gets fed next.

The babies can tell when a parent is close to returning with food and they squeal loudly with anticipation and supplication. Makes my task easier because that’s when it’s time to lift the lens and start snapping. I love how in this sequence they are so excited only to then show their disappointment when Mom flew right past them without any food.