Brown-headed Cowbirds are starting to form flocks …….
When blackbirds start to form flocks, fall is on the way! Which seems a bit premature as it is only the end of July.
Brown-headed Cowbirds start to form flocks early. At first, it will just be several to maybe half a dozen – both males and females. As the weeks go by and we get closer to the actual first day of fall – September 22nd this year – these flocks will slowly get larger and larger until there are dozens – even hundreds – in each one. These flocks in early September can be mixed male and female, or either male or female. Interestingly, juveniles from this spring and summer will be part of these flocks even though they are not raised by their biological parents and never had contact with them. These cowbirds copulate, the female lays her eggs in other birds nests, and that is the end of their responsibility.
If you have been watching the birdfeeder cam over the last few weeks, you would have seen much family activity. Parents and their young. First it was the Downy Woodpecker parents and 2-3 youngsters. Then it was the Blue Jay families. Finally, the Common Grackles dominated with the shrieking juveniles hounding their parents – unrelentingly. And at the birdbath cam, it has been families of Baltimore Orioles and then House Finches – all bathing together. The point being, both cameras showed hard-working parents teaching their young how to forage and bathe. But who teaches the juvenile cowbirds? Their adoptive parents often have a different way of life and their biological parents take no part in their upbringing. So is it genetic imprint causing them to have all the traits and behaviors of all the other cowbirds?
Free choice or destiny? A question philosophers have been asking since the beginning of time. It would seem in the case of Brown-headed Cowbirds, the answer is destiny. As soon as each was conceived, it was destined to be a cowbird and only a cowbird. It does not matter if it was raised by a warbler, a robin, a bluebird, or an Indigo Bunting. The baby cowbird, from the moment it hatched, will develop all the characteristics of all the other cowbirds. It will never adopt anything from its adoptive parents regardless of who they are.
And how do juvenile cowbirds recognize others of their species? It would seem it is inherent that cowbirds know they are cowbirds, regardless of who their adoptive parents were. And they immediately recognize other cowbirds and know it is in these flocks that they belong. How do they know all that?
Would a cowbird recognize itself in a mirror? Something to think about …..