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 ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Brown-headed cowbirds are generalist brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of many other bird species and letting the host parents raise their young. A new study seeks to ...

Over a door in the quiet yard of a historic home in Newburyport, a drama is unfolding. A house finch couple built a nest, the female laid her eggs, and then a brown-headed cowbird showed up. Since ...

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, ...

A chuckling gurgle and a squeaky whistle announce the presence of one of nature's oddest and most maligned birds, the brown-headed cowbird. They're a native species but have an alien-like habit: They ...

Black birds with a greenish sheen and brown heads sometimes visit my yard during spring migration. These are male brown-headed cowbirds, and they often arrive in mixed flocks of red-winged blackbirds ...

Q. Do brown-headed cowbirds select the nest of another bird to lay eggs in based on which species raised them as a nestling? In other words, if a cowbird is raised as a chick by a red-winged blackbird ...

FORT SILL, Okla. -- The brown-headed cowbird is one of those native birds that wasn't raised with good manners. And that's a problem for the black-capped vireo. You see, the vireo is an endangered ...

There is an azure blue egg hidden in a hanging basket of ferns on our front porch. It belongs to a female house finch that just about caromed off my forehead last week when I tipped a watering can ...

Today’s comment of the day comes directly from a bird’s worst nightmare. In response to today’s post on the nesting habits of brood parasite, the cuckoo finch, commenter Aloicious shares this even ...