Evening star., 1948-03-24
This and That
BIZ Charles E. Trace1UeH

A beautiful stranger was in the feeding box.
Though he had bad reputation in bird
dom, he presented fine picture as he stood
sQuarely in the center of the bed Of seed.
He was black, making glstening contrast with
the common sparrows who were there with
him. 5"-'
His head was brown.
What bird was he?
He was male cowbird. the only bird Of
black hue with brown head There was no
doubt Of him being fine looking fellow.
He flew out Of the feeder several times to
q nearby flower border.
When he flew in again, the sparrows made
way for him, so that he seemed to take up
his position squarely in the middle of the
box as il by divine right.
At no time did the sparrows seem Offend
ed by his presence. Only occasionally would
he peck at them, and this did not cause
them to leave the seed, but merely to step
aside.
Those sparrows could not, of course, know
of the evil reputation of the cowbird tribe.
The male cowbird, perhaps, should not be
regarded as evil by any one. It is the female
who does the nefarious work of laying her
eggs In other birds nests.
This deed, SO foreign to most birds, puts
the lady cowbird In class with few for
eign feathered parasites.
It is an odd quirk of nature. Why or how
these birds evolved it remains unknown. Some
people feel that if birds are the reincarnation
of people, the cowbird must have been the
lazybones.
This structure may apply to the male bird
as well as to his mate. Neither one of them
builds nest, an integral part OF the whole
nesting process They do not feel the need Of
any nest, evidently, for they have no inten-
ton of incubating or feeding their young.
Other birds, while they have no conscious
ideas Of such things, have great natural in
stncts which mean the same thing to them.
The bluebird,. the cardinal and a host o.
others all build nests, hatch their young and
feed them, as we'll as train them.
Cowbirds, on the other wing, blithely for
60 all these things The female cowbird lays
her single egg in another birds nest usually
built by . smaller bird, such as . warbler;
and that's that.
Sometimes the victimized mother bird builds
another nest over the cowbird egg, but in
most cases she does not know the difference
between the slightly larger egg and her own.
She matches them ALL and, since the cow
bird baby is the largest and most vigorous,
1t gets the most food, because all mother birds
feed the most vociferous babies the 'frstest
and the mostest." The old idea that each
baby bird is fed in solemn turn, and in ut
most fairness, does not seem to hold.
It may be realized what the rightful babies
are up against, when a young cowbird is
their brother because the mother bird simply
never catches onto the deception, but goes
right ahead giving the foster child the lions
share OF food and attention.
This lack of what might be considered Or
binary acumen often costs the life of the
rghtful heirs of the nest. 1t is said that for
each new cowbrd in the world five other
birds must die.
Whether cowbirds are wsrth this sacrifice,
we do not know. We are inclined to accept
this oddity of nature, and not to question 1t
too much. Nature has many strange ways,
some of them far stranger Perhaps there is
D pattern to the whole into which cowbird
action fits
Certainly, they are beautiful and interesting
birds. The male will strike you as nothing
less than a flying lump of anthracite coal
The female is so different that you may never
notice her at all, being a mixture of gray and
brown. In her quiet way, she is beauty, too
They are small, sleek birds, without the slight
est appearance of contemplating anything
wrong Perhaps one would have to think
cowbird and be a cowbird to judge them fairly
Human beings have their instincts, too, and
one of these is to judge everything from the
human standpoint Inasmuch as We are living
creatures, this may be all right, for 1t is what
all living creatures do; but If we aspire to be
the sole judges, let us look ruefully at our
atomic bombs, before we speak too haYshly
q the eowhird and hss little evil behavior.