Cowbirds breed from SE Alaska, through lower Canada, through the entire continental U.S. to central Mexico. The cowbird is a small blackbird with a short conical bill and long, pointed wings. Males appear black with a unique brown head and neck.
Females are either dullish gray or brown throughout.
Their main food items are seeds and arthropods. They sometimes hawk, looking for slow flying insects. She wanders about, parasitizing many nests and laying up to 40 eggs per season. The young are then cared for by the host. 144 different host species have been documented to rear cowbird young, so the incubation and parental care of cowbirds varies greatly depending on the nest in which they are deposited.