Hi, I would love to know, and I sure wish I could find that article. I
definitely recall that it said the cowbird chicks that were studied left their
nest like 3am to go to the field ("party"), and then came back to the nest
before dawn, to continue to pretend to be their slave parent's child!
Of course later they'll not sit in the nest any more, and wander around while
being fed, I've seen that. And yes I am sure you are right about most of the
other things you noted! I maybe should not have said "teenager", -- that was my
word choice, not that of the scholars whose research was reported in that
Living Bird magazine article. I used "teenager" because the cowbird nightly
field party seemed to be a ... teenager's dance party.
Maybe someone else knows the URL for the actual article. I can't find it, I
must have read it in print only.
This rather memorable article also talked about other astounding discoveries
such as that the catbird is the only bird that can resist the cowbird's
trickery. Unlike other birds, it said, the catbird will expel every egg that
looks different from its first egg. So, the cowbirds can only outsmart it by
laying their egg in the catbirds' new nest before even mama catbird has laid
her first egg there. If it can, then the catbird will expel her own eggs, one
after the other. And if the cowbird scheme fails, it might rip up the nest (as
revenge).
--yrs.,
Magnus Fiskesjö
[email protected]
________________________________________
From: AB Clark [[email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2020 9:30 AM
To: Magnus Fiskesjo
Cc: Michael H. Goldstein; CAYUGABIRDS-L
Subject: Re: [cayugabirds-l] Cowbirds
I wonder if there has been some mis-intepretation either in the article or by
subsequent readers. Cowbird young, like other passerines, leave the nest in
the care of parents (foster or otherwise) and live outside the nest from then
on. (OK individuals may hop outside during the day and return at night for the
day or two over which they fledge.) Care for cowbirds in the fledgling stage
lasts a similar time to their relatives, red-winged blackbirds and other
smallish icterids. They should be fed and be following or calling to parents
over the next 12-14 days, not joining older cowbirds. Teenagers would be
perhaps yearling cowbirds? It is later, in summer and fall, when young
cowbirds are independent of parents, that they flock up with other cowbirds and
blackbirds.
I haven’t heard anything about 3 am gatherings from Meredith or her students.
Seems pretty dark for any such passerine to be moving. West and King studied
them in aviaries and it could be that researchers got up at 3 am to set up and
be there when singing started to happen. But in any case, cowbird song
learning is a fascinating situation where the basic songs are clearly not
learned from parents during late nestling or early fledgling periods, i.e.
develop “innately”, but are socially modified in a number of ways, feedback
from female cowbirds and from competing male cowbirds both. West and King
published several really nice overviews in accessible papers, Scientific
American or American Scientist, I believe.
By the way, there is at least one video-documented report of a hatchling
cowbird behaving like cuckoos and butting host eggs out of the nest.
Anne B Clark
147 Hile School Rd
Freeville, NY 13068
607-222-0905
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
On Apr 11, 2020, at 9:11 AM, Magnus Fiskesjo
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
This morning, a male cowbird singing, at Salt Point. Never heard that before. A
very low volume series of thin crispy notes. No clucking, as in some recordings
of its song.
The bird sat very close, on top of the little pine/fur tree at the lakeside
fork of the path to the Bluebird Path.
It refused to leave its perch and continued singing even as I stood right under
the tree.
Ps. the weirdest cowbird research for me was the Living Bird piece reporting on
how a cowbird knows it is a cowbird, and not a whatever other bird, despite
being raised by them as slave parents. It was discovered that the grown chick
gets up at 3am and leaves the slaving foster parents' nest, to go hang out with
other teenager cowbirds in a nearby field. Next question is, how do hey know
that they should get out of bed at 3am and go to the field party and get to
know their cowbirdness?
ps. I could not find the reference to the Living Bird magazine article where I
read this. I only find this partial account, also interesting but no mention of
the teenager party:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/if-brown-headed-cowbirds-are-reared-by-other-species-how-do-they-know-they-are-cowbirds-when-they-grow-up/
--
Magnus Fiskesjö
[email protected]
_________________________________
From: [email protected]
[[email protected]] on behalf of Michael H. Goldstein
[[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, April 10, 2020 8:05 PM
To: CAYUGABIRDS-L
Subject: Re: [cayugabirds-l] Cowbirds
Cowbirds are crazier than you think…check out the research by Meredith West and
Andrew King on the role of female cowbirds (who don’t sing) in shaping the
development of juvenile males' song by using rapid wing gestures:
http://www.indiana.edu/~aviary/Research/female%20visual%20displays.pdf and more
generally, http://www.indiana.edu/~aviary/Publications.htm
Cheers,
Mike
On Apr 10, 2020, at 7:49 PM, Peter Saracino
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I was having a cup of coffee looking out the window at 3 male and 3 female
cowbirds going at the sunflower seeds. As I watched them it dawned on me that
all of them were raised by foster parents!!!
According to the Lab of O:
"the cowbird does not depend exclusively on a single host species; it has been
known to parasitize over 220 different species of North American birds".
Crazy, wild stuff.
Pete Sar
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