Educate Yourself About the Brown-headed Cowbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
The Brown-headed Cowbird has a short, sparrow like bill, dark brown head, black body, long pointed wings, and a relatively short tail. Its length is 7in (18cm) Its wingspan is 12in (30cm) Its voice is song of bubbly and creaky “glug-glug-gleeee”, and the note is a “chuck”. Their eggs are white, marked with brown speckles, with 3-4 clutches consisting of 11-20 eggs in total. Sometimes they will lay more than just one egg in other bird’s nests. The host incubates for about 10-13 days, and fledging time is a around 10-ll days. Both hosts feed the young cowbirds. The female is dowdy ash grey.
The Brown-headed Cowbird has it pretty easy when it comes to parenting; actually they have no parenting skills at all. This lustrous black bird, has found another way to provide for their nestling's by looking for an active nest, especially warblers, and sparrows. She will quickly lay an egg or sometimes two, and then fly off, never to look back again. Sometimes she will even remove some of the exciting eggs, to make more room for her own ones. She is capable of laying over 40 eggs all together, so she is a very busy little mother.
One day when you are outside bird watching or feeding in your lovely garden, you might notice a cardinal show up with a squalling, plump grey youngster in tow, and then you know what has happened. The Cowbird is known to lay their eggs in over 220 different kinds of bird’s nests, and over 120 of these birds have successfully reared young cowbirds. But there are some birds like the Gray Catbird, the American Robin, and the Eastern Kingbird, who will throw out the cowbirds speckled egg or eggs.
The Brown-headed Cowbird was once known as the (Buffalo Bird), and was mainly found in prairie states, following migratory bison herds. They feed of the abundance of pesky insects surrounding the herds, but then started to follow cattle herds as well witch permitted them to spread to both coasts. This insect-eating habit might be the reason why cowbirds parasitize other nests, they are constantly following different herds, and does not stay in one place long enough to raise their young.
Unfortunately nestling cowbirds grow much quicker and are more aggressive then the host’s young ones, and will therefore receive more food witch sometimes results in the death of the other nestling's. Soon after they leave the nest, you can find them feeding in lawns, on weed seeds and insects. In the fall they will flock together to visit cattle yards, and feed on left over grain and insects.
If you like to attract The Brown-headed Cowbird, buy some insect attracting cattle, (just kidding). They will feed mostly on the ground, and on any kind of larger mixed seeds. Always provide fresh water and clean birdbaths near by, in your lovely bird feeding garden.
