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IMG_9826 Brown-headed Cowbird
This juvenile female Brown-headed Cowbird is foraging along the Gros Ventre River in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Cowbirds don't win any popularity contests as they are brood parasites, who lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, which then raise the cowbirds' young as their own. What's worse, studies indicate that cowbirds may actually monitor, ransack and destroy the nests of warblers that don't buy into this ruse and raise their young. This retaliatory behavior is thought to "encourage" the warblers to raise the cowbirds' offspring.
Bird identified by Dr. Dave Steadman, Curator of Ornithology at the Florida Museum of Natural History. The lead author of the 2007 study on cowbird retaliatory behavior is avian ecologist Jeff Hoover, also of the Florida Museum of Natural History, in collaboration with Scott Robinson.
IMG_9826 Brown-headed Cowbird
This juvenile female Brown-headed Cowbird is foraging along the Gros Ventre River in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Cowbirds don't win any popularity contests as they are brood parasites, who lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, which then raise the cowbirds' young as their own. What's worse, studies indicate that cowbirds may actually monitor, ransack and destroy the nests of warblers that don't buy into this ruse and raise their young. This retaliatory behavior is thought to "encourage" the warblers to raise the cowbirds' offspring.
Bird identified by Dr. Dave Steadman, Curator of Ornithology at the Florida Museum of Natural History. The lead author of the 2007 study on cowbird retaliatory behavior is avian ecologist Jeff Hoover, also of the Florida Museum of Natural History, in collaboration with Scott Robinson.