Some other species such as yellow warbler will reject cowbird eggs or build a
new nest over one w/cowbird eggs in it. I have seen a 2 layered nest before (
after the young have fledged) presumably a yellow warblers.
Also, from Cornell’s NestWatch program: “ Those species which accept cowbird
eggs either do not notice the new eggs, or as new evidence suggests, accept
them as a defense against total nest destruction. Cowbirds may “punish”
egg-rejectors by destroying the entire nest, whereas it is possible for
egg-acceptors to raise some of their own young in addition to the cowbird young”
Sent from my iPhone
>> On Apr 11, 2020, at 10:10 AM, Magnus Fiskesjo <magnus.fiske...@cornell.edu>
>> wrote:
>
> 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
> n...@cornell.edu
> ________________________________________
> From: AB Clark [anneb.cl...@gmail.com]
> 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
> anneb.cl...@gmail.com<mailto:anneb.cl...@gmail.com>
>
>
>
> On Apr 11, 2020, at 9:11 AM, Magnus Fiskesjo
> <magnus.fiske...@cornell.edu<mailto:magnus.fiske...@cornell.edu>> 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
> n...@cornell.edu
> _________________________________
> From: bounce-124539965-84019...@list.cornell.edu
> [bounce-124539965-84019...@list.cornell.edu] on behalf of Michael H.
> Goldstein [michael.goldst...@cornell.edu]
> 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
> <petersarac...@gmail.com<mailto:petersarac...@gmail.com>> 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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