When a female cowbird is ready to have a baby, she’ll stake out another bird’s nest, wait until the coast is clear, then slip ...

Cowbird mothers abandon their eggs in the nests of other bird species, but the chicks somehow manage to find their flock and ...

Cowbird incubation times are similar (10-11 days) although in a naturally parasitized nest, cowbirds typically hatch one day earlier than the hosts’ chicks, thereby giving them a headstart in ...

Discover how long baby birds stay in the nest, how long it takes bird eggs to hatch, how baby birds learn to fly and more ...

If a cowbird ends up in a prothonotary warbler nest with four host chicks, the cowbird either perishes or the number of warbler chicks drops, usually to two, the study found.

What Is A Cowbird? "Cowbirds look like a shiny iridescent blackbird with its head dipped in chocolate and have a unique ‘gloo-gloo-glee’ call that they make," Ellison says. Female and juvenile ...

Many species of birds get reputations of various sorts. One species that gets a bad rap, through no fault of its own, is the brown-headed cowbird. The female cowbird lays its eggs in the nests of ...

A nest was assaulted. Was it the cowbird or the sparrow? Credit...Michelle Mildenberg Supported by By Daryln Brewer Hoffstot Ms. Hoffstot is a freelance writer living on a farm in western ...

Unlike most other bird species, the brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) lays its eggs in the nests of other bird species ...

The Brown-headed Cowbird lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, a behavior known as nest parasitism. The male has a shiny black body with a dark brown head.

This purple finch nest with four finch eggs and one from a brown-headed cowbird, a notorious brood parasite. Photo courtesy of Tom Tatum ...

If a cowbird ends up in a prothonotary warbler nest with four host chicks, the cowbird either perishes or the number of warbler chicks drops, usually to two, the study found.