Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Not My Idea of Nature

I suppose that every birdfeeder in the suburbs ultimately comes face to face with one of the truly rotten deals Nature pulls out of her bag of tricks: the Brown Headed Cowbird.  I suppose this species wasn't too big a deal when its range included cattle country.  But now their nest parasitism impacts such as neotropical migrants which are poorly equipped to combat the aggressive Cowbird young that displace their own.  And there's not a bloody thing one can do about it.  We have cowbirds here and I regularly hear their liquid song.  I know they are causing some harm, but hopefully only to those that can fight back, like the cardinals and nuthatches.  Just a darn shame they upset our picture of nature in the back yard...maybe we had it coming.

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