Brown-Headed Cow Bird

The Brown-Headed Cowbird is 7-inches in length. It has a chocolate brown head, a flossy black body, and a conical bill. The female looks completely different, with mouse gray plumage and a lighter throat. They like to live near farmland, forest edges, swamps, open fields, and backyards. It eats a combination of insects, grains, and berries. Cowbirds build no nests. Instead, the female distributes as many as 20 grayish white eggs marked with brown dots in the nests of other birds. She removes an egg from each “host” bird’s nest and replaces it with her own. The host then raises the nestling cowbird - sometimes at the expense of its own young, which may be pushed out, smothered, or starved by competition from the larger cowbird chick. The foster parents rear the alien youngster until it can procure its own food. Cowbirds often show up with other blackbirds and will eat cracked corn and millet.

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