Cowbird

“ This bird is called cowbird because he is fond of flying about the cows,—not to trouble them, but to eat the insects that torment them,—which is very pleasant for the cows, I am sure.
There is one queer way that cowbirds have, which no one is able to explain. The cowbird mother does not build a nest for her little family. Yet she wants them well cared for. So she goes slyly about and lays her eggs in other birds' nests. She generally chooses the nest of a smaller bird, though she often uses one belonging to a wood thrush. ”

“ Their nests vary from the elaborate purse-shaped structures of the oropendola and orioles to the dome-shaped nest on the ground of the meadow lark, the simple cup of the bobolink and redwing; the cowbird makes none. The cowbird lays its eggs in the nests of a wide variety of other species to be cared for by them. Here those who discuss the relative importance of heredity versus environment can profit by - 93 - considering these social parasites. The young cowbird, hatched and brought up by, say, a yellow warbler, remains a cowbird. ”

“ Most little birds—warblers and finches—accept the charge. They hatch out the strange egg and bring up the young cowbird, who is bigger than themselves. He is so big that he usually smothers the young ones that belong in the nest. So he receives the whole attention of the little mother bird.
Sometimes other birds come to help one who has a young cowbird to feed, and he grows big and strong. When he is full grown he joins a party of other cowbirds, and they go off in a flock by themselves. ”

“ Cowbird, tramp that he is, for when the first flocks of blackbirds are seen sailing overhead, like leaves blown by the wind against the sky, you know that spring is near, no matter how cold or chill the weather may be. ”

“ It is probable they are—at least to a greater or less degree—except one, the bay-winged cowbird of South America, which I shall reserve for notice later on in this article. We might assert that our common cowbird is the parasite par excellence of the family, for, so far as I can learn from reading and observation, they never build their own nests or rear their own young, but shift all the duties of maternity, save the laying of the eggs, upon the shoulders of other innocent birds. ”

“ A yellow warbler’s nest “tumbles home” a bit at the top, as does the hull of a yacht, and I do not think their slender claws could grasp the egg and get it over that lip. Instead, they had done what they could,—imprisoned the intruder egg where it could not hatch.
I found it there, addled and nearly dried up within, and I rejoiced. The cowbird is a light-o’-love and abandons children on other people’s doorsteps. All such should be put in a pie. Since English sparrows became so plentiful the cowbird has shown a decided partiality for their nests for its abandoned offspring. ”

“ As the young birds began to grow, the Cowbird not only maintained, but rapidly increased its lead over its small nest-mate. At every visit of the parent bird with food, its capacious gullet could be seen violently waving aloft and almost completely hiding the feeble little mouth of the Warbler, whose owner was pathetically doing its best in a dumb appeal for food. ”

“ The insects offered a fat supper to the birds as they clung to the twitching hides of the cattle. So the flock was hastening to reach the gully before milking-time.
The young cowbird called disconsolately again and again after the shadow of the flock [49] was far away, making a moving blot across the darkening plains. Then, discouraged, he tucked his head under his wing, clutched the stone more tightly with his claws, and rocked gently back and forth as the soft south breeze spread his tail, lifted his growing pinions, and blew his new feathers on end. ”

“ It is a handsome bird and a fine whistler, but when we remember how this foreigner is slowly but surely elbowing our native birds out of their rightful haunts, we find ourselves losing sight of its beauties. The cowbird, 158 of course, imposes her eggs upon many of the smaller species of birds, while our beautiful purple grackle, meadow lark, red-winged blackbird, and the Baltimore and orchard orioles rear their young in safety. ”

“ The Cowbird lays its eggs in the nests of various other birds, distributing them about the neighbourhood. Here they are left to be hatched and the young to be reared by the foster parents. Cowbird's eggs have been found in the nests of nearly one hundred species of birds, and nearly always the nest of some smaller bird is chosen. Despite this fact the Cowbird's eggs are often first to hatch. The young grow rapidly and, being strong and aggressive, not only secure the lion's share of the food, but frequently crowd the young of the rightful owner out of the nest to perish on the ground beneath. ”

“ As soon as the young leave the nest the greedy Cowbird follows the little mother about the thickets, shouting loudly for food. Its fierce clamour drowns the weaker cries of the legitimate young, which I have reason to believe even then often die for lack {58} of nourishment. So insistent is the young Cowbird and so persistently does it pursue the foster parent that it is well cared for and invariably thrives. ”

“ Not finding a convenient nest, it will even drop its eggs on the ground, trusting them to merciless fate, or, still worse, devouring them. The eggs are nearly an inch long, white speckled with brown or gray.
Cowbirds are gregarious. The ungrateful young birds, as soon as they are able to go roaming, leave their foster-parents and join the flock of their own kind. In keeping with its unclean habits and unholy life and character, the cowbird's ordinary note is a gurgling, rasping whistle, followed by a few sharp notes. ”

“ The cowbird belongs to the family of birds scientifically known as Icteridæ, which includes such familiar species as the bobolinks, orioles, meadow larks, and the various kinds of blackbirds, none of which, I am glad to say, are parasites. ”

“ This little fellow was absorbed in the care of an infant more than twice as big as himself. "A cowbird baby!" will exclaim every one who knows the habit, shameful from our point of view, of the cowbird, to impose her infants on her neighbors to hatch and bring up. But this baby, unfortunately for the "wisdom of the wise," did not resemble the cowbird family.
We saw the strange pair several times in the woods, and then one day, as I sat at my window trying to write, I heard a new cry, and saw a strange bird fly to the fence. ”

“ The cowbird is another species that is widely spread over the continent and its habit of associating with cattle for the purpose of feeding upon the flies that swarm about them suggests the question—whether this habit was acquired since the settlement of the country, or did these birds haunt the bison herds on the plains and begin to straggle eastward after the cattle were introduced. ”

“ A place for day-dreams truly, and the summer warblers were the dryads and nymphs flitting through the realms of fancy. If all birds were as astute as the summer warbler, the race of cow-buntings would soon become extinct, or would soon have to change their methods of propagation, and go to rearing their own families. Our little strategist, when she comes home and finds a cowbird’s egg dropped into her nest, begins forthwith to add another story, and thus leaves the interloper in the cellar, with a floor between it and her warm breast. ”

“ In my study of birds I have found that old birds educate the young, and I knew that the young cowbird was piloted by its mother, or the foster-parents turned it over to its kind to be rid of incumbrances. Few writers have studied the cowbird through the nesting season. Mr. John Burroughs writes that he found small eggs in the path that had two pricks in the shell. Afterward he detected the cowbird removing an egg from a bird's nest. Mr. Burroughs intimates that the cowbird did this to deceive the owners of the nest. They, finding the proper number of eggs, would not detect the fraud. ”

“ Unless the little bird should build a new floor, or abandon her nest entirely, the cowbird egg will hatch first, and the lusty changeling will demand the lion’s share of food and attention. Frequently the other eggs do not hatch; if they do, the young birds often perish with hunger and cold. When young cowbirds have been reared by their patient little foster-parents, they leave their benefactors and join flocks of their disreputable relatives.
In justice it must be said that cowbirds, like all villains, have a redeeming trait—they are great destroyers of weed seeds and insects. ”

“ Two or more cowbird’s eggs are almost sure to be deserted or buried. But the cowbird is very persistent and keeps on laying, as successive stories are added to the nest by the energetic and persevering warblers. ”

“ In obtruding her eggs into the nests of other birds Madame Cowbird is sly and stealthy. She does not drive the rightful owners from their nests, but simply watches her opportunity to drop her eggs into them when they are unguarded. No doubt she has been on the alert while her industrious neighbors have been constructing their domiciles, and knows where every nest in the vicinity is hidden. ”

“ By experience they have been taught that the larger birds invariably dispose of the eggs by removing them from the nest. It frequently selects the bunting’s nest in which to deposit its brown spotted eggs, which are much larger. The cowbird, being of a larger species, grows much faster, and before long the foundling fills the little nest, forcing the rightful owners out of home and board. ”

“ I think the cowbird often injures the nest when she lays her egg, as she probably gets in and out of it with more or less haste, being hurried by the aggrieved owners, for not only do the young vireos fall out of the nest, but even the interloping cowbird sometimes falls out before he is able to fly and meets his death by a tumble before he is prepared to leave the nest. ”

“ They are too lazy to build nests of their own, but they go and lay their eggs in other birds’ nests whenever they get a chance, and never go near them again. Then the cowbird’s egg gets hatched with the robin’s or the catbird’s eggs, or whatever nest it happens to have been laid in, and the little cowbird is awfully greedy and p. 271snatches all the food, and grows up to be just like its parents. Oh, they are hateful birds! I was reading about them to-day in a book Mr. Madison lent me on birds. It said there that no self-respecting American bird will have anything to do with cowbirds. ”

“ Only rarely is a cowbird's egg found after the middle of July. No cowbirds have been seen since the first week of the month, save the young one on the stump, which the field-sparrow was feeding this morning. They disappear early, seeking seclusion for the moulting. When they emerge from their hiding places they form into flocks, spending their days in the grain-fields and near the rivers where the food is most abundant and easy to procure. At nightfall they congregate, like the red-winged blackbirds, in the sand-bar willows on the river islands. ”

“ The eggs, always four in number, he describes as having a ground of pale ashy-green, thickly covered with minute dots of a light umber-brown.
Mr. Nuttall states that on the 2d of May, during his western tour, he saw these birds in great abundance, associated with the Cowbird. They kept wholly on the ground, in companies, the sexes separated by themselves. They were digging into the earth with their bills in search of insects and larvæ. ”

“ The parents were very watchful of the young, and were seen to drive away such birds as the cowbird, blue jay, wren, chickadee, brown thrasher, kingbird and blackbird, if they came too near the nest; the only bird that was not driven away was a catbird. ”

“ The Redstart is often victimized by the Cowbird, and one feels the imposition more keenly in its case than in that of almost any other bird, for we know that the big clumsy Cowbird is being reared at the expense of a whole family of these pretty warblers. ”

“ As soon as it no longer needs its foster parents' care it flocks with other cowbirds, with all their mannerisms and characteristics, and next season it mates with another cowbird. There is nothing left of its early environment. ”

“ A recent writer upon our wild life says he has discovered that the cowbird watches over its young and assists the foster-parents in providing food for them—an observation so contrary to all that we know of parasitical birds, both at home and abroad, that no real observer can credit the statement. ”

“ While it is surprising that acute birds should allow themselves to be imposed on in this way, perhaps, after all, they look upon the cowbird as a kind of blessing in disguise; at least, he may not be an unmixed evil. They may act on the principle of reciprocity—that "one good turn deserves another." ”

“ About one-fifth smaller than the robin.
Male—Iridescent black, with head, neck, and breast glistening brown. Bill dark brown, feet brownish.
Female—Dull grayish-brown above, a shade lighter below, and streaked with paler shades of brown.
Range—United States, from coast to coast. North into British America, south into Mexico.
Migrations—March. November. Common summer resident.
The cowbird takes its name from its habit of walking about among the cattle in the pasture, picking up the small insects which the cattle disturb in their grazing. ”

“ They assemble with the blackbirds of various species where food is most abundant and easy to be procured.
Late investigations of the food habits of the cowbird indicate that the species is largely beneficial. Prof. Beal showed the food of the cowbird to consist of animal and vegetable matter in the proportion of about twenty-eight per cent. of the latter. Spiders and harmful insects compose almost exclusively the animal food, while weed seeds, waste grain, and a few miscellaneous articles make up the vegetable food. ”