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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 their young.
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.
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 ]
The two classifications were considered identical in early times, but the meanings are slightly different, in that "altricial" and "precocial" refer to developmental stages, while "nidifugous" and "nidicolous" refer to leaving or staying at the nest, respectively.
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The cowbird is another parasitic species that lays their eggs in a different species' nest; the eastern phoebe. [15] Although the cowbird's eggs differ in size and colour, the eastern phoebe will still choose to provide parental care unless there is a partial clutch reduction, or PCR.