This is Bird Note.

In North America, the European starling has gained a bad reputation for competing with native bird species for nest cavities.

They're not known as good neighbors, to say the least.

But to their surprise, researchers at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada saw three

hairy woodpecker nestlings receive care from both a female hairy woodpecker and a European

starling. A stunning example of a bird caring for another species young.

While the hairy woodpecker fed the chicks more times per hour than the starling,

the starling made an effort to clean the nest cavity of waste, which the woodpecker did not do.

The researchers aren't certain why the starling began caring for the woodpecker nestlings.

Possibly the woodpecker's mate died, and the starling's strong parental instincts led the bird to start bringing food to the unrelated chicks. Begging calls from nestlings seem to work

beyond a bird's own species.

While one species caring for another is rare among birds, the fact that it does sometimes happen shows just how powerful the sound of a begging chick is to an adult bird.

For Bird Note, I'm Michael Stein.