Thanks. Yes it's curious and hard-to-believe and I think that's why I remember so clearly reading about this in the Lab of O's Living Bird member's magazine, but as I said, can't find that article online--perhaps it is only in their printed version which I must have read 2017 or later. AllAboutBird account is much earlier, 2009, and does not bring up what must be some NEW research ( 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/ ).
Regardless, just now a friend sent me this 2015 report below, which mentions the SAME strange observations that I believe I read in Living Bird -- with minor differences: this report mentions chicks as nightly departing foster nests after sunset, not 3am, BUT returning only at dawn; also, it says the nightly escape is solitary, NOT to congregate with other young cowbirds in a 'teenager party' as I remember from Living Bird (which also said that the field congregation was only revealed to Science after new tracking that was launched only once researchers had found that the cowbird chick they monitored was missing from its nest at night! So, maybe the 'teenager party' was only found out after simultaneously tracking several youngsters?) Anyhow, here goes: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151102152607.htm Science News Juvenile cowbirds sneak out at night Date: November 2, 2015 Source: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign A new study explores how a young cowbird, left as an egg in the nest of a different species, grows up to know it's a cowbird and not a warbler, thrush or sparrow. The study, published in Animal Behaviour, reveals that cowbird juveniles leave the host parents at dusk and spend their nights in nearby fields, returning just after daybreak. This behavior likely plays a role in the cowbirds' ability to avoid imprinting on their host parents. "If I took a chickadee and I put it in a titmouse nest, the chickadee would start learning the song of the titmouse and it would actually learn the titmouse behaviors," said Matthew Louder, who conducted the study as a Ph.D. student with Illinois Natural History Survey avian ecologist Jeff Hoover and INHS biological surveys coordinator Wendy Schelsky. "And then, when it was old enough, the chickadee would prefer to mate with the titmouse, which would be an evolutionary dead end," he said. Louder is now a postdoctoral researcher with East Carolina University in North Carolina and Hunter College in New York. The imprinting process is widespread among birds and other animals, but brood parasites like the cowbird appear to be resistant to imprinting. They will imprint on a different species if confined with that species for an extended period of time in a cage, but the birds don't appear to do so in the wild. Cowbird hosts, such as the prothonotary warblers in this study, have their own habits and habitats, and seldom choose to live where the cowbirds live or eat what they eat. Prothonotary warblers, for example, live in forests and dine on insects and caterpillars. Cowbirds spend most of their adult lives in open fields and prairies, and while they do eat insects, about three-quarters of their diet consists of seeds. "Among other things, cowbirds have got to learn to eat like cowbirds or they're not going to survive very long," Hoover said. The researchers wanted to test the hypothesis that cowbird moms are the ones that lead their offspring out of the forest. There was some support for this idea. A recent study from the same team found that cowbird females don't simply abandon their eggs in another species' nest. They pay attention to whether the young birds survive, sometimes wrecking the nests of birds that kick the cowbird eggs out of their nests. The cowbird females also return to nests where young cowbirds survived to fledging age. Cowbird females are often spotted in the vicinity of cowbird nestlings, Schelsky said, and sometimes respond (with vocalizations, not food) to the nestlings' begging calls. To track the birds in the forest and prairie, the researchers put radio telemetry transmitters on the cowbird nestlings and on adult female cowbirds in the forest where the host parents made their nests. The team took blood from the birds and conducted genetic analyses to match the juveniles (and their radio signals) to their biological mothers. But tracking the birds, even with the radio transmitters, was next to impossible, Louder said. He tried for a year, but was unable to get meaningful data. Then study co-author Michael Ward, a professor of natural resources and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois, came up with a new approach. "He helped construct an automated telemetry system," Louder said. "We put up three radio towers, each with six antennas on it, so you have 360-degree directional coverage. All three towers track one individual cowbird at a time and then move to the next individual." With this system, Louder could track the location of each study bird every one-to-two minutes. "We were able to watch the juveniles and see if they left the forest at the same time as a female and, if so, whether that female was their mom," he said. "Strangely enough, the juveniles did not follow the females out of the forest," Louder said. Instead, they left on their own, after dark, returning only the following morning, he said. "I started seeing this in the data and I thought it was wrong," Louder said. So he went to the forest and followed a single juvenile cowbird for one night. The bird left the forest in the evening, moving to a rosebush on the adjacent prairie. It was out there all night, alone. "As soon as the sun came up, the juvenile flew back into the forest and to the warbler's territory," Louder said. "Without the automated radio telemetry, I would have assumed that it had stayed in the forest all night." The discovery doesn't explain how cowbirds find their way into a cowbird flock, where they learn most of their social and survival skills and eventually find a mate. But it does offer some insight into the processes that allow young cowbirds to avoid imprinting on their hosts, the researchers said. "Clearly, there's a lot more to these birds than people would have thought," Hoover said. "We still have more layers to peel away from this onion that is the cowbird." Story Source: Materials provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Original written by Diana Yates. Note: Content may be edited for style and length. Journal Reference: Matthew I.M. Louder, Michael P. Ward, Wendy M. Schelsky, Mark E. Hauber, Jeffrey P. Hoover. Out on their own: a test of adult-assisted dispersal in fledgling brood parasites reveals solitary departures from hosts. Animal Behaviour, 2015; 110: 29 DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2015.09.009 [= https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347215003401?via%3Dihub ] Cite This Page: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "Juvenile cowbirds sneak out at night." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 2 November 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151102152607.htm>. -End quote. --sincerely, Magnus Fiskesjö, PhD Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Cornell University McGraw Hall, Room 201. Ithaca, NY 14853, USA E-mail: [email protected], or: [email protected] Affiliations at Cornell University, WWW: Anthropology Department, https://anthropology.cornell.edu/anthropology-faculty Southeast Asia Program (SEAP), https://seap.einaudi.cornell.edu/people/faculty East Asia Program (EAP), http://eap.einaudi.cornell.edu/people/core-faculty CIAMS (Archaeology), https://archaeology.cornell.edu/faculty Cornell Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA), cipa.cornell.edu/academics/fieldfaculty.cfm Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS), http://pacs.einaudi.cornell.edu/people/steering-committee _________________ ________________________________________ From: John Confer [[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2020 7:47 PM To: Magnus Fiskesjo; CAYUGABIRDS-L Subject: Re: [cayugabirds-l] Cowbirds 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: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Magnus Fiskesjo <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2020 10:10 AM To: AB Clark <[email protected]> Cc: Michael H. Goldstein <[email protected]>; CAYUGABIRDS-L <[email protected]> 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 [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://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 [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: 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 <[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. 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