Those are the first lines of a song written in 1979 by Bill Staines, once a regular on Garrison Keillor's radio show. The brown-headed cowbird, our resident cowbird, does have a place in the choir, ...

Q. Do brown-headed cowbirds select the nest of another bird to lay eggs in based on which species raised them as a nestling? In other words, if a cowbird is raised as a chick by a red-winged blackbird ...

Black birds with a greenish sheen and brown heads sometimes visit my yard during spring migration. These are male brown-headed cowbirds, and they often arrive in mixed flocks of red-winged blackbirds ...

The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, Vol. 120, No. 4 (Dec., 2008), pp. 667-673 (8 pages) Grassland passerines are purported to tolerate parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds (Molothrus ater) because of ...

This is a preview. Log in through your library . Abstract ABSTRACT Several species of avian brood parasites have evolved egg mimicry, which can interfere with host egg rejection. Parasitic egg mimicry ...

The birds in my Decatur yard usually give me joy, but the other morning a couple of birds hanging out at the feeders made me wince. They were brown-headed cowbirds, which, during the nesting season, ...

Nature has so many different ways to accomplish just one task – reproduction. At this time of year, it seems that everywhere I look I see baby birds. It’s a blizzard of baby birds being fed by their ...

Brown-headed cowbirds are plain Janes in the birding world, brown on brown. They don't look like much, but cowbirds are nonetheless impressive. They found a clever solution to a serious problem. Once ...

Every spring I get reports from astonished readers describing a small bird feeding a much larger, obviously begging chick. Can you explain this, readers ask. The answer is “brood parasitism.” ...

Female brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) singing at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge near New York City. (Credit: Rhododendrites / CC BY-SA 4.0) Brown-headed cowbirds, Molothrus ater, are fascinating ...