The birds in my Decatur yard usually give me joy, but the other morning a couple of birds hanging out at the feeders made me wince. They were brown-headed cowbirds, which, during the nesting season, ...

Those are the first lines of a song written in 1979 by Bill Staines, once a regular on Garrison Keillor's radio show. The brown-headed cowbird, our resident cowbird, does have a place in the choir, ...

The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, Vol. 120, No. 4 (Dec., 2008), pp. 667-673 (8 pages) Grassland passerines are purported to tolerate parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds (Molothrus ater) because of ...

Black birds with a greenish sheen and brown heads sometimes visit my yard during spring migration. These are male brown-headed cowbirds, and they often arrive in mixed flocks of red-winged blackbirds ...

This is a preview. Log in through your library . Abstract ABSTRACT Several species of avian brood parasites have evolved egg mimicry, which can interfere with host egg rejection. Parasitic egg mimicry ...

Many biologists have a love/hate relationship with brown-headed cowbirds. We love their ecological and behavioral ingenuity, but we hate the impact they have on a variety of native nesting song birds.

Cowbirds are common in the area, and in winter they can be seen in large flocks, together with other kinds of blackbirds. The full name is brown-headed cowbird to distinguish it from two other ...

Since the 1960s, biologists have made fake eggs for some studies of bird behavior. But Mark Hauber of Hunter College in New York says this kind of scientific handicraft is not exactly his forte. "With ...