My brown-headed cowbirds (
Molothrus ater) are back! Two male cowbirds made their appearance the other morning and availed themselves of the seedy-smorgasbord that Vinomaker spreads on the rail of our deck. Usually, just one male and one female will show up, but there have been no sightings of lady cowbirds as yet. Personally, if I were them, I would have stayed down south, in warmer climes, a bit longer this spring as the weather up north has been cool and damp for the best part of a week now. They are extremely skittish birds and so it is very hard to get a decent photograph of them.
Cowbirds got their name from hanging around herds of grazing cattle and taking advantage of the myriad of insects that the cattle would flush from the vegetation. Like cuckoos, cowbirds practice brood parasitism, so they are of dubious character when it comes to their reproductive habits. Still, I love their quirky brown head-held-high strut and all the chitter-chatter they make. Welcome back to Vinoland, cowbirds.
