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 ...

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, ...

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.” ...

Brown-headed cowbirds are generalist brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of many other bird species and letting the host parents raise their young. A new study seeks to understand the ...

Brood parasitic birds lay their eggs in the nests of others, sparing themselves the expense of rearing their own young. The resulting coevolutionary arms race includes sophisticated defenses by hosts ...

One of the most interesting topics discussed in my Ornithology class was about the “con artists” found in nature… Brood parasitism occurs when a female bird (the parasite) lays her eggs in the nest of ...

If you are raised by other species, then how do you know who you are? Although heterospecific foster parents rear brood parasitic brown-headed cowbird chicks, juvenile cowbirds readily recognize and ...

In late spring and early summer, birds are busy building nests and raising their young. However, one exception is the freeloading Brown-headed Cowbird, laying its eggs in the nests of other birds, a ...

There is an azure blue egg hidden in a hanging basket of ferns on our front porch. It belongs to a female house finch that just about caromed off my forehead last week when I tipped a watering can ...

The Bulletin is a quarterly publication consisting of major articles based on original studies of birds and short communications that describe observations of particular interest. Each issue also ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Brown-headed cowbirds are generalist brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of many other bird species and letting the host parents raise their young. A new study seeks to ...