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The brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) is a small, obligate brood parasitic icterid native to temperate and subtropical North America. It is a permanent resident in the southern parts of its range; northern birds migrate to the southern United States and Mexico in winter, returning to their summer habitat around March or April.
The screaming cowbird is a specialist brood parasite, predominantly parasitizing the nests of baywings (Agelaioides). [5] [8] [9] [10] In 1874, W H Hudson was first to observe this parasitic relationship when he witnessed what he believed to be baywing chicks morph into screaming cowbird plumage.
The shiny cowbird's diet consists mainly of insects, other arthropods [4] and seeds, and they have been recorded foraging for grains in cattle troughs. [ 2 ] Like most other cowbirds , it is an obligate brood parasite , laying its eggs in the nests of many other bird species such as the rufous-collared sparrow . [ 5 ]
A shiny cowbird chick (left) being fed by a rufous-collared sparrow Eastern phoebe nest with one brown-headed cowbird egg (at bottom left) Shiny cowbird parasiting masked water tyrant in Brazil. Brood parasitism is a subclass of parasitism and phenomenon and behavioural pattern of animals that rely on others to raise
The female cowbird may continue to observe this nest after laying eggs. Some bird species have evolved the ability to detect such parasitic eggs, and may reject them by pushing them out of their nests, but the female cowbird has been observed to attack and destroy the remaining eggs of such birds as a consequence, dissuading further removals.
Interspecific brood parasitism evolved twice independently in the order Passeriformes, in the cowbirds (genus Molothrus) and in the family Viduidae. [1] Instead of making nests of their own, and feeding their young, brood parasites deposit their eggs in the nests of other birds. [2] The vampire finch is a parasite, but is not brood parasitic. [3]
The brown-headed cowbird is a brood parasite, which places its own eggs in nest of other birds, placing the burden of parenting on other birds. The brown-headed cowbird is thought to have a center of origin in the Great Plains of North America, but has expanded in both directions to spread across most of North America.
Brood parasitism is a rare behavior in which about 1% of all 10,000 birds in the world exhibit. [16] The birds that display this behavior are 57 species of cuckoos, 5 species of cowbirds, 17 species of honeyguides , 20 species of African finches, and one duck called the black headed duck.