Many species of birds get reputations of various sorts. One species that gets a bad rap, through no fault of its own, is the brown-headed cowbird. The female cowbird lays its eggs in the nests of ...

Those are the first lines of a song written in 1979 by Bill Staines, once a regular on Garrison Keillor's radio show. The brown-headed cowbird, our resident cowbird, does have a place in the choir, ...

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

Claim to fame: The brown-headed cowbird is well-known in birding circles, but is not particularly well-liked. That’s because of its habit of laying eggs in the nests of other species of birds. A ...

This data set concerns the possible effects of brood parasitism on the species composition of a songbird community. Your instructor will give you directions about using this file to make figures ...

The brown-headed cowbird is one of the most hated birds in the entirety of the animal kingdom. Each springtime, when most birds are settling down to build their nests, the cowbird is sneakily plotting ...

Brown-headed cowbirds are plain Janes in the birding world, brown on brown. They don't look like much, but cowbirds are nonetheless impressive. They found a clever solution to a serious problem. Once ...

Nestling brown-headed cowbirds Molothrus ater typically hatch earlier and grow faster than young of the many host species of this generalist obligate brood parasite. However, a cowbird chick also ...

An innate password tells cowboys to copy their songs. This is an Inside Science story. (Inside Science) -- Most songbirds learn to sing by copying songs they hear around them. But young brown-headed ...

How to use this data set in a class: This data set could be used in discussions of community ecology (species diversity), species interactions (brood parasitism), and management of an endangered bird ...

Several people reported a strange sight at their feeders this past week. In all cases, a small bird was busily feeding a much larger begging bird. The smaller bird was indeed the parent. Unfortunately ...