This weeks wild bird is the cowbird. On a recent brightly sunny day (too sunny for good pictures) this cowbird landed on the feeder. The Brown-headed Cowbird is a stocky blackbird with a fascinating approach to raising its young. Females forgo building nests and instead put all their energy into producing eggs, sometimes more than three dozen a summer. These they lay in the nests of other birds, abandoning their young to foster parents, usually at the expense of at least some of the host’s own chicks.
If a group comes by they will empty my feeders very quickly. Supposedly a ground feeder but as you can see they get it where they can.
On a recent day when I hadn't filled the feeder the Mrs. landed on the finch feeder.
Here the two are on the ground beneath the feeder. If you look closely you can tell it was a rainy day. Little beads of water collect on their feathers.
