Friendly Natives

Working on the back porch with the laptop, I often have the wild birds coming around, but this sweet little female cowbird seems more friendly than most:

She must have been tamed elsewhere, because she is not shy at all unless this is somehow inherent in this species. I doubt it. The laptop was actually on my lap when I took this picture.

Unfortunately, cowbirds are terrible birds: they are brood parasites, and they don't build nests for themselves. Instead, the female lays eggs in a nest of another kind of bird (usually in the passerine family) and the hijacked parents do all the work. Baby cowbirds grow very quickly and outcompete their nestmates for attention and food from the parents, and it's unknown why the parents don't realize that this stranger bird is not their own.

Posted by Steve at May 31, 2003 01:12 PM | TrackBack