NOVA ScienceNOW | Surveillance Vide Catches Cowbird Killing Babies
August 12, 2010 by Adoption Information and Laws
Filed under Fostering & Orphanages
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This rare video shows a female cowbird killing live warbler nestlings to make way for her own egg! Brown-headed cowbirds are one of the few species in world that never take care of their own young. Instead they lay their eggs in other birds nests and rely on the foster care of other species to raise their babies for them. Recent experiments confirm that brown-headed cowbirds “farm” their hosts — the act of removing other removing other bird’s eggs from their nests so they can create opportunities for themselves to lay their eggs in that nest. This strategy not only makes room for cowbird eggs but also resets the biological clock of the host species to lay new eggs and raise the cowbird baby alongside its own! And cowbirds may have an even more dastardly trick up their sleeves—for more check out www.pbs.org/nova/sciencenow/ Video Credit: Phillip Elliot, Eastern Connecticut State University
the same goes for the rapidly expanding populations of bronzed and shiny cowbirds in texas and florida respectively..
@freddyfast9 you got part of it right………….they did follow bison herds around on the plains….however there are many MANY songbirds that live in open grassland…horned larks, meadowlarks, grasshopper sparrows, lark buntings, longspurs, ect and the cowbird parasitized them back then,,,,,,,,its only been in the last 200 years or so that theyve moved east with hte expansion of farmland like one other poster before said. so the cowbid now has a huge range of potential hosts to choose….
This behavior was described in an old radio broadcast I heard, I didn’t believe it!
Here’s a link to the text of the broadcast called “egg racism”!!
oops, it’s censored by google. No surprise there, politically incorrect….
Search egg racism in alta vista or yahoo and it will come up.
l
I’ve done my part by killing over 100 cowbirds this last spring and summer. I have not seen a cowbird in months they are parasites. For those that say it’s natures way well you are correct and cowbids used to follow the buffalo around eating seed from their dung but no more buffalo caused cowbirds to leave the plains and head toward forests and now the suburbs and a species that rarely came in contact with songbirds in the past is now a disaster for songbirds.
God’s sadistic design. Another perfect example is the observation of a wasp, which lays its eggs inside live caterpillars; the wasp larvae devour and burst out of their living host.
They are causing alot of damage to Warbler & Sparrow populations here in the East.
They say when the eastern forests were opened up. it enabled the Cowbird to move East into new territory
Awesome design, God!
(sarcasm)
Afterall, they ARE our cousins.
holy crap. Horrible
Fucking brutal
D: poor babies
I KNEW IT!! THEY CALLED ME MAD!!! BIRDS MURDER!!!
Jokes aside, is there some kind of dispute about the cowbird in this matter? And this video proves that they DO kill baby birds?
WHoa!!!