Brown-headed Cowbird

[Ira Runyan]

My yard is overrun with Brown-headed Cowbirds!! They visit in large flocks of 50-100 birds, most males with just a few females present.

Brown-headed Cowbirds are a small blackbird with glossy brown head, heavy bill, and dark eyes. The black body has a faint green sheen. Walks on ground to forage and holds tail cocked over back. Feeds on caterpillars, insects, spiders, fruits, grains and seeds. Swift direct flight with rapid wing beats.

The male has an iridescent black body and a brown head. The female is slightly smaller than the male and uniformly brownish gray.

The Brown-headed Cowbird does not build a nest of its own. Females forgo building nests and instead put all their energy into producing eggs, sometimes more than three dozen a summer. These they lay in the nests of other birds, abandoning their young to foster parents, usually at the expense of at least some of the host's own chicks. Some of the birds they parasitize remove the eggs from their nests or cover them with new nest material so that they are not incubated. The cowbird eggs typically hatch earlier than their host's eggs which gives them a competitive advantage over the other hatchlings. Rapid growth allows the cowbird chick to out compete the host's chicks for food and space in the nest. The result is that the host's chicks usually perish.

Here are a few photographs..........................

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7. & 8. The female is a rather unimpressive plain-jane bird.

[scott-devon]

Those are beautiful shots Ira, great job on catching the irridescence of the feathers.

[Eric D]

I learn something new every day...nice job and info on the pics

[janicee]

The birds are simply great but I notice too much lighting in most of the pictures and they seem not to flatter the birds much.