Comments on Mafia Birds

Interesting... but on some level that's not a very satisfying explanation. Lots of bird species engage in "brood parasitism" (leaving their eggs in the nests of other bird species) and none that I know of back it up with a mafia-type threat. Most trust to camouflage, or to the propensity of their hatchlings to kill the host bird's young and dominate the nest. The mafia threat involves a form of delayed cause-and-effect reasoning that seems beyond the intellectual capacities of host bird species (cowbirds are plenty smart).

Also, that is a very odd picture of brown-headed cowbird. To most people, our Northwestern variety looks like a small blackbird or crow, not a beady-eyed Darth Vader.

I wouldn't want one of those things in my nest.

That's the most eerily threatening picture of a cowbird I've ever seen. The ones around here look more like... birds? They have a brown head and black/irridescent body.

Could it be a function of simple reinforcement behavior? If they attacked the nest soon enough after the other birds rolled it out, it might be enough to make the connection. I wonder if it would make the birds less reluctant to roll any eggs out of their nests.

Wench, could be...

So that's a picture (a somewhat stylized one) of the bronzed cowbird. The bronzed is slightly more threatening looking that our local brown-headed, which is the species studied in the article that Charles links references.

That bird wants to kill me.

Don't they call a group of them a "murder"?

A group of crows is a "murder". A group of cowbirds is, presumably, a "crew". Or maybe a "hitman".

"A hitman of cowbirds left the head of a horsebird in the pigeon's nest."

Yeah, I'd say "hitman".

The original article is available for free to anyone interested at the PNAS website.

The American economy is a cowbird.

The Mexican economy, more likely.

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