Episode 94: Brown-Headed Cowbird – Voice of the Wild

This is Brodie with Illinois Extension and I’m here with a new “voice of the wild”

In winter you’ll find these birds mixed in with flocks of blackbirds around feedlots and cattle pastures. You can pick them out from their blackbird companions by looking for their relatively small size, shorter tail, and finchlike beak. In greener months they’re much more widespread and can be found around the edge of forests where you might hear the male’s gurgling and complex call or catch a female searching for another bird’s nest where she might lay her eggs. This is the brown-headed cowbird.

Most know the cowbird as North America’s brood parasite, just like Europe’s well-known common cuckoo. but they are not the only bird in North America that’ll lay their eggs in another bird’s nest; many waterfowl will do the same, usually but not always in the nest of a member of the same species. Its thought that waterfowl are less negatively affected by brood parasitism because waterfowl chicks can forage on their own. The victims of the cowbird are not so fortunate, cowbird chicks are as voracious and helpless as the chicks they replace. Here’s the brown-headed cowbird again.

Thank you to the Macaulay library at the Cornell lab for today’s sound. Learn more about voice of the wild at go.illinois.edu/VOW