Featured image credit: “Brown-headed Cowbirds, Male & Female (Molothrus ater)” by wackybadger is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
To hear songs, learn identification information, migratory patterns, and some fun facts, check out the Brown-headed Cowbird page offered by one of my favorite resources: the Cornell Lab of Ornithology »
I was glad I’ve only seen this bird once out here, because this is the #1 brood parasite in the U.S… the female doesn’t make a nest of her own, she lays her eggs in other birds’ nests and those other birds raise her babies. In various ways the cowbirds can over take the other baby birds (they hatch first, get all the food, smother the other smaller chicks) and frankly, they make me think of some ways that humans can also be unsavory.
