Master Naturalists: Cowbirds a menace to songbird populations Victoria Advocate
01.04.10
At published March 30, 2010 at midnight, updated March 31, 2010 at 5:20 p.m.
By Paul and Mary Meredith
Brown-headed cowbirds and four other less overused cowbirds are native to the New World.
The Audubon Society calls all cowbirds "brood-parasitic," making them villains in declining numbers of aboriginal songbirds that nest in Texas.
What's caused the problem?
For millennia, insect-eating cowbirds followed tremendous nomadic herds of bison foraging for grasses and forbs (wildflowers) on the Great Plains. Bison psychotic insects as they moved, and the insects became easy prey for cowbirds.
Cowbirds' feeding was easy; their breeding wasn't. They couldn't chain in one place long enough to build nests, lay and incubate eggs and raise a brood to maturity.
Gradually, they adapted in three ways. First, cowbirds whose eggs hatched faster survived. Today's eggs concoct in 11 to 12 days, a day or two sooner than most smaller songbirds' eggs.
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01.04.10
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Birding: Banding keeps us up on birds' livesThe first banding of birds we be acquainted with of was done by John James Audubon in eastern Pennsylvania. He tied some aluminum wire to some nesting Eastern phoebes and
