Short Stuff: Brown-Headed Cowbird

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1:05Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too. And this is a short stuff, which is why I realized now that I started this off incorrectly. Short stuff. Let's go.

1:17Josh Clark:That's right. Big thanks to Britannica, Yellowstone Wild Tours, California Department of Fish, Wildlife, New Hampshire Audubon, and Audubon for information about the ground-headed brown? Ground? Brown-headed cowbird. Thanks to Yumi, too. She brought this bird to my attention. Oh, I forgot. Yumi.org. So, Chuck, we're talking today about cowbirds, and really, in particular, the brown-headed cowbird. You ever heard of them before? Had never heard of them. I hadn't either. But if you want to know about a brown-headed cowbird, the first thing you need to know about it is that it's a brood parasite.

1:51What does that mean, Chuck, what does that mean?

1:54Josh Clark:Well, I had never heard of this trait in a bird either. So a brood parasite is a bird that will be like, you know what? I don't want to build my own nest and go through all that whole process of raising these babies that I egg out of my body. So I'm just going to go lay those eggs in some other bird's nest and then go away and shirk parenthood. Yeah. You do it for me. How about that? Yeah. That's exactly what they do. And it, you know, You're like, why would you do that? You have to be a jerk bird. And yeah, I think a lot of people think of cowbirds as kind of jerk birds just for doing that. But from their point of view, this is just an adaptation that made a lot of sense to how they evolved originally.

2:38And they're from North America. And they were, I think, indigenous to the Great Plains of North America. And the reason why is because there's another animal that was indigenous to the Great Plains of North America. And they had a commensal. Commensal?

2:54Josh Clark:Is it commensal? I don't know. I don't think so. I feel like there's a U in there. Anyway. Oh, okay. They had the kind of relationship where they benefited, but didn't harm the other animal. And I feel like it's high time we tell everybody what the other animal was, Chuck. That's right. Drum roll, everybody. It is the bison. They would follow these bison across the plains. Sometimes they were, initially they were called bison birds or maybe buffalo birds, even though that's wrong. And they would follow these guys across the plains and they would feed on the insects that the bison would kick up and they would sometimes ride along on their backs.

3:31Josh Clark:And this led to why they would not birth their own little eggs in their own little nest and raise them because they went where the bison went. And they were always on the move. And bison can travel, buddy. So if they're moving 10, 20 miles a day and they're catching a ride on a bison's back or at the very least flying around with a bison, they're not staying there long enough to set up their own home. Yeah. Cowbird was a rolling stone. That's right. Well, bison bird at the time, I guess. Oh, yeah, that's right. So, yeah, it totally made sense that like they still need to reproduce. So they would just find a nest somewhere along the bison route and leave their egg and then fly back to the bison and be like, wait, wait, wait for me, everybody.

4:15and I feel like that's a pretty good place to take our break. What do you think?

4:20Josh Clark:I totally agree. Okay. All right. We're taking our break, everybody.

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6:53So Chuck, sadly, as probably most people know, the American bison was overhunted almost to extinction, we can seriously legitimately thank Ted Turner for almost single-handedly bringing the American bison back.

7:09Josh Clark:That's right. And so while in between that period, between overhunting and Ted Turner, the bison bird was like, I don't have my niche anymore. I need to figure out what's going on here. I got to start looking elsewhere. And they basically spread outside of their ecological niche in the Great Plains to look for other things they could do to replace their bison friends, which they must have just been horrified by all the massacres they witnessed. Yeah, I bet. It was probably very sad times for the bison bird, but eventually one of them would land on a cow and say, hey, these guys aren't so bad to ride around on.

7:48Josh Clark:But here's the thing is cows don't move around like the bison did. They're not traveling, you know, 20 miles a day. So you might think, all right, they're leading a more sedentary life. These birds are now cowbirds. And so maybe they will change their behavior now that they're not they don't need to do this. But they didn't. They said, we love these cows, but we also kind of like this adaptation because, you know, who really wants to parent? They're young. Yeah, exactly. We're not going to we're not going to change anything. We're just going to stop, you know, wasting so much effort flying around all the time.

8:26I think there's, I don't remember. Oh, there's five species of cowbirds, at least the parasitic versions. And the brown-headed cowbird, the reason we're talking about the brownhead is because it is by far the least picky about what nest it lays its eggs in. So these are, you know, they're not large eggs. They're much smaller than like a chicken's egg, but they're probably not as tiny as like, say, a robin's egg. They're middling size eggs. Brownheaded cowbirds will lay their eggs in like a duck's nest. So this little egg is like five times smaller than the other eggs around it. Obviously, the ducks are like, what is this crud?

9:04And there are other bird species, too, that are kind of onto them. But a lot of times the birds will just, you know, play along or else just be fooled.

9:15Josh Clark:Yeah, I think the finch is notorious for not liking these eggs in their nest. They're not good hosts to these intruding eggs. So apparently they will, you know, they will die if they are left in charge of a finch. Other birds will get mad and puncture holes in the eggs or just, you know, beak them out of their nests. I think the catbirds do that. And then the yellow warbler has a strategy where they build nests. nest, they'll just nest a new nest on top of those poor little eggs, sometimes several new nests, like up to five new nests on top to really bury those guys. I know there's some like Tom and Jerry like, like scene that is making, that makes me think of.

9:59Yeah. But like it happens like really, really fast. Right.

10:03Josh Clark:Right. So if however, the cowbird happens to lay their egg in a nest that the bird is like just too lazy to do anything about, that cowbird is probably going to be the only hatchling that survives because it has adaptations to outcompete other birds in the nest that it's laid in. Yeah. One of them is they have a shorter incubation period. So they're born first, I think sometimes up to three or four days before the other eggs might hatch. And so they got a little bit of a head start where they might take care of those extra eggs themselves. These baby birds might nudge those things out. So earlier, you were saying there are some bird enthusiasts that kind of think these are jerk birds.

10:51Josh Clark:And in my mind, I was like, yeah, but, you know, like these birds are doing their thing. Like you can't get mad at nature for being nature. But then you get to this part and you're kind of like, oh, man, that really kind of sucks. Yeah. Yeah. So even if they're like, oh, I'll let you guys stay and the cowbird doesn't push the other hatchlings out, just from being a couple days older, they'll be able to muscle the other birds out of the way to get the food, and they'll just continue to outpace them in their growth. And it might be so bad that the other hatchlings starve because the cowbird doesn't let them get any of the food from the mother.

11:25Yeah.

11:26Josh Clark:So I get it now, bird enthusiast. I have a question for you, though, Joshua, which is with all this going on, not being raised by their parents, how in the world does the cowbird not start to take on traits of the bird that raised them? How do they remain cowbirds? I'm glad you asked that. We don't really know, Chuck. As a matter of fact, there seems to be some sort of mechanism that prevents cowbirds from imprinting onto their adopted or foster parent from the other species. They're not exactly sure how this happens, but they think that cowbirds, hatchlings, are attuned to the sound of adult cowbirds in the area and that they're naturally attracted to it.

12:12Once they learn to fly, they'll go seek out other cowbirds. And I guess there they learn all of the cowbird habits, like playing craps and smoking cigarettes and all that stuff. And then also there's, they do some weird nighttime excursions out of the nest while they're being raised. And I guess no one knows where they go, but that's something that they're like, that probably has something to go learn actual cowbird behavior too.

12:41Josh Clark:Yeah. I wonder if when they are attuned to the sound of their own, if they eventually fly out when they're big enough to find them, if they're like, mama. And the birds are like, don't look at me, buddy. Right, exactly. Even if it was their mom, they wouldn't take credit because it's a brown-headed cowbird. Yeah, that's right. So if you want to find one of these, you might see them in your feeder. They are adapted to all over North America, rural, suburban, urban. You can find them everywhere. They're a smallish, a medium-sized smallish bird, whatever that means. But the males They also have a brown head that shines and shimmers almost like a deep red in the sunlight.

13:23And they also have iridescent greenish-blue plumage on their body. The females, you're not going to really notice that much. They're much less showy, but that's pretty standard for birds anyway. For sure.

13:36Josh Clark:I think short stuff is about out. But since we have an extra 30 seconds, I'm going to take this opportunity to promote the new nature series from the BBC, the latest in their ongoing work with the great David Attenborough, Sir David Attenborough, Asia. Oh, nice. and it is fantastic stuff as always exactly what you would expect out of the BBC Nature series and Sir Attenborough is 99 years old he's going to be 100 in May and he's still doing it and it's just some really amazing striking stuff. Did they spell it like Steely Dan? Spell what like Steely Dan? Oh no no no no. No they spelled it A-S-I-A.

14:24Josh Clark:Okay gotcha. Not a J-A. Well, there you go. You're welcome, BBC. Chuck just hooked you guys up with some viewers. I'm going to go check that out myself. It's great. You guys would love it. Cool. Well, then I think now Chuck Short Stuff is out.

14:41Josh Clark:Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

14:55Thank you.