I, also, wonder about this report. I've had to handle nestlings for research purposes, always with fear and the most care possible. Nestlings don't stay in nests any longer than absolutely necessary because nests are depredated by raccoon, cat, weasel, skunk, raptors, etc. Nestlings generally can't leave any earlier because they don't have sufficient feathers for insulation nor muscle strength to move around. Further, since they don't thermoregulate until just about the day they leave, they would have a hard time surviving in the lower temperatures of night. 3 to 4 to 5 AM is usually the coldest time of the 24 hr cycle, often 20-30-40 degrees colder than mid-day. This doesn't makes sense to me.
It is a pretty image. John ________________________________ From: bounce-124540618-25065...@list.cornell.edu <bounce-124540618-25065...@list.cornell.edu> on behalf of Magnus Fiskesjo <magnus.fiske...@cornell.edu> Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2020 10:10 AM To: AB Clark <anneb.cl...@gmail.com> Cc: Michael H. Goldstein <michael.goldst...@cornell.edu>; CAYUGABIRDS-L <cayugabird...@list.cornell.edu> Subject: RE: [cayugabirds-l] Cowbirds This message originated from outside the Ithaca College email system. 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://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.allaboutbirds.org%2Fnews%2Fif-brown-headed-cowbirds-are-reared-by-other-species-how-do-they-know-they-are-cowbirds-when-they-grow-up%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cconfer%40ithaca.edu%7Cb0c382615f8d447374fb08d7de221e28%7Cfa1ac8f65e5448579f0b4aa422c09689%7C0%7C1%7C637222110430445371&sdata=qSkhspt%2BrENXqrmr5gv%2F5EnKw%2Fe8lssr9wjNCqZMaT0%3D&reserved=0 -- 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: https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http:%2F%2Fwww.indiana.edu%2F~aviary%2FResearch%2Ffemale%2520visual%2520displays.pdf&data=02%7C01%7Cconfer%40ithaca.edu%7Cb0c382615f8d447374fb08d7de221e28%7Cfa1ac8f65e5448579f0b4aa422c09689%7C0%7C1%7C637222110430455372&sdata=XdPriXo%2BzVrVgjdFjNb3Yo%2FXS7Uj3GGF2iCnLCbniu4%3D&reserved=0 and more generally, https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http:%2F%2Fwww.indiana.edu%2F~aviary%2FPublications.htm&data=02%7C01%7Cconfer%40ithaca.edu%7Cb0c382615f8d447374fb08d7de221e28%7Cfa1ac8f65e5448579f0b4aa422c09689%7C0%7C0%7C637222110430455372&sdata=xtWADdPzoRH4NXGPX3EgFrRrBFRG%2FfzdG96Ucbrtmmw%3D&reserved=0 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. 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