Young Cowbirds Look To Adult Females For Proper Social Development

Raised by foster parents, how do juvenile cowbirds discover their true identity and learn proper social development so they grow up to be normally functioning adult cowbirds?

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Female brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater), singing at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, New York. (Credit: Rhododendrites / CC BY-SA 4.0)

Most birders don’t much like cowbirds because the adults lay their eggs in other songbirds’ nests and abandon them to be raised by their foster parents, often at the expense of the foster parents’ own offspring. This life history trait is known as obligate brood parasitism.

“Cowbirds often get a bad rap because they’re brood parasites,” the study’s lead author, behavioral ecologist Mac Chamberlain, a PhD Candidate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told me in email.

“But it’s exactly this unusual start in life that has pushed them to evolve some remarkably creative strategies to navigate the world,” Mr Chamberlain explained in email. “Less than 1% of all bird species in the world are brood parasites, with cowbirds being the only obligate brood parasite bird group in North America. Rather than seeing them as villains, we should start recognizing cowbirds as a powerful example of how nature comes up with clever and unexpected ways to solve tough problems.”