Species: Brown-headed Cowbird
Most recent capture date: 4/23/2022
Earliest capture date: 5/01/2019
Age: at least four years old
Sex: female

Notes: Instead of building a nest and raising her own chicks, a female Brown-headed Cowbird lays eggs in other bird’s nests for them to raise. This involves searching for other birds’ nests and monitoring them to know when to add her egg, sneaking in at the exact right moment to go unnoticed, and (because success rates are low) laying 20+ eggs per season. Whew! I think raising your own chicks might be easier… (It’s thought that cowbirds developed this strategy because they followed herds of bison as they roamed, eating bugs off of them, so the birds couldn’t stay in one place long enough to raise their own chicks.)