Among nature lovers and bird watchers on Turtle Island (North America), there’s maybe no better way to cause a dust-up than to mention the Brown-Headed Cowbird. It is a favorite bird to love and hate.

As native here as the songbirds it takes advantage of, the Brown-Headed Cowbird is an obligate parasite, meaning that it never builds its own nest but instead lays its speckled eggs to hatch alongside (and sometimes instead of) its unwilling host’s. The cowbird shares this way of life with a handful of other birds in the world, among them the better-known cuckoo. Prolific and increasingly wide-ranging, it can lay as many as 40 eggs a season in the nests of hundreds of birds, including Hooded Warblers, Chipping Sparrows, Red-Eyed Vireos, Red-Winged Blackbirds, Song Sparrows, and many more.

Among nature lovers and bird watchers on Turtle Island (North America), there’s maybe no better way to cause a dust-up than to mention the Brown-Headed Cowbird. It is a favorite bird to love and hate.

As native here as the songbirds it takes advantage of, the Brown-Headed Cowbird is an obligate parasite, meaning that it never builds its own nest but instead lays its speckled eggs to hatch alongside (and sometimes instead of) its unwilling host’s. The cowbird shares this way of life with a handful of other birds in the world, among them the better-known cuckoo. Prolific and increasingly wide-ranging, it can lay as many as 40 eggs a season in the nests of hundreds of birds, including Hooded Warblers, Chipping Sparrows, Red-Eyed Vireos, Red-Winged Blackbirds, Song Sparrows, and many more.

Among nature lovers and bird watchers on Turtle Island (North America), there’s maybe no better way to cause a dust-up than to mention the Brown-Headed Cowbird. It is a favorite bird to love and hate.

As native here as the songbirds it takes advantage of, the Brown-Headed Cowbird is an obligate parasite, meaning that it never builds its own nest but instead lays its speckled eggs to hatch alongside (and sometimes instead of) its unwilling host’s. The cowbird shares this way of life with a handful of other birds in the world, among them the better-known cuckoo. Prolific and increasingly wide-ranging, it can lay as many as 40 eggs a season in the nests of hundreds of birds, including Hooded Warblers, Chipping Sparrows, Red-Eyed Vireos, Red-Winged Blackbirds, Song Sparrows, and many more.