From my neighbor who is an avid bird watcher:
"That's an awesome catch on video! Yeah, Brown-headed Cowbirds lay their eggs in other nests and let other birds rear their young. Some birds are fooled, some are not. Cardinals are often fooled.
You caught a Cowbird laying two of her eggs in the Cardinal nest. Wow. Fantastic footage. Notice the Cowbird kicked out one of the Cardinal eggs, too. The Cowbird might come back and kick out more Cardinal eggs. Also notice the Cardinal female sat back down on the four eggs at the end, now which include two of hers and two of the Cowbirds. The cardinals did not succeed in fending off the cowbird. The cowbird wasn't planning on squatting, just doing exactly what she did - lay eggs for the Cardinals to incubate and afterward, raise the resulting young for her.
Some people hate Cowbirds for doing this, but that's what they used to do when the followed Bison ages ago as the herds would roam. The birds roamed with the herds and could not stay to raise their young and adopted this method, which they still practice today.
Again, an awesome catch. Andy and I watched it together. Please share more! Watch the nest - you'll notice the difference right away between the cardinal young and the cowbird young, particularly as they grow and are raised by the cardinals."
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From Reddit:
u/BirdsAreRobinMyHeart
I'm just winging it
This is some cool documentation! The brown bird is a Brown-headed Cowbird parasitizing the Northern Cardinal nest. The cowbird did indeed get one of the cardinal eggs out of the nest, but she also laid 2 of her own in there: once in the middle of the video and once near the end.
Source: / female_northern_cardin...
Негізгі бет 🐦 Brown-headed Cowbird Fools Cardinals
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