Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Brown-Headed Cowbird

Episode Date: April 22, 2026

There’s a kind of bird that lots of people think is a real jerk. And it kind of is. But in the brown-headed cowbird’s defense, it’s just evolved that way. Find out why it has such a bad reputation among bird lovers in this Short Stuff.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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IHeart Radio app search One and listen now. Joy 101 with Hoda Cotphe is presented by CVS. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And this is a short stuff, which is why I realized now that I started this off incorrectly short stuff. Let's go.

That's right. Big thanks to Britannica, Yellowstone Wild Tours, California Department of Fish, Wildlife, New Hampshire Audubon and Autobahn for information about the ground-headed brown, ground? Yeah, brown-headed cowbird. Thanks to Yumi, too. She brought this bird to my attention. Oh, I forgot. Umi.org.

So, Chuck, we're talking today about cowbirds, and really, in particular, the brown-headed cowbird. Do you ever heard of them before? Had never heard of them. I had neither. But if you want to know about a brown-headed cowbird, the first thing you need to know about it is that it's a brood parasite.

What does that mean, Chuck? What does that mean? Well, I had never heard of this trait. in a bird either. So a brood parasite is a bird that will be like, you know what, I don't want to build my own nest and go through all that whole process of raising these babies that I egg out of my body. So I'm just going to go lay those eggs in some other bird's nest and then go away and shirk parenthood. Yeah, you do it for me. How about that? Yeah. That's exactly what they do. And it, you know, you're like, why would you do that? You have to be a jerk bird. And yeah, I think a lot of people think of

cowbirds is kind of jerkbirds just for doing that. But from their point of view, like, this is, this is just an adaptation that made a lot of sense to how they evolved originally. And they're from North America. And they were, I think, indigenous to the Great Plains of North America. And the reason why is because there's another animal that was indigenous to the Great Plains of North America. And they had a commensal, commensal. Is it commensal? I don't know. No, I don't think so. I feel like there's a you in there. Anyway, they had the kind of relationship where they benefited but didn't harm the other animal.

And I feel like it's high time we tell everybody what the other animal was, Chuck. That's right. Drumroll, everybody. It is the bison. They would follow these bison across the plains. Sometimes they were initially they were called bison birds or maybe buffalo birds, even though that's wrong. And they would follow these guys across the plains and they would feed on the insulin. that the bison would kick up and they would sometimes ride along on their backs.

And this led to why they would not birth their own little eggs in their own little nest and raise them because they went where the bison went. And they were always on the move. And bison can travel, buddy. So if they're moving 10, 20 miles a day and they're catching a ride on a bison's back at the very least flying around with the bison, they're not staying there long enough to set up their own home. Yeah. Cowbird was rolling stone. That's right. Well, bison bird at the time, I guess.

Oh, yeah, that's right. So, yeah, it totally made sense that, like, they still need to reproduce. So they would just find a nest somewhere along the bison route and leave their egg and then fly back to the bison and be like, wait, wait, wait for me, everybody. And I feel like that's a pretty good place to take our break. What do you think? I totally agree. Okay. All right. We're taking our break, everybody. feel it in your heart. IR. Radio, Canada's number one streaming app for radio and podcasts, including IHart Pride Canada, your favorite hits and must have party bangers, plus personalized and curated playlists,

like back in the day pride. Come together, celebrate love. Take pride with you anytime, anywhere. Just ask your smart speaker to play IHartPride Canada. Stream us on your phone or listen now at iHeartRadio.ca. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges.

I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chuck, sadly, as probably most people know, the American bison was overhunted almost to extinction. We can seriously legitimately thank Ted Turner for almost single-handedly bringing the American bison back. That's right. And so while in between that period, between overhunting and Ted Turner, the bison bird was like, I don't have my niche anymore.

I need to figure out what's going on here. I got to start looking at. elsewhere, and they basically spread outside of their ecological niche in the Great Plains to look for other things they could do to replace their bison friends, which they must have just been horrified by all the massacres they witnessed. Yeah, I bet. It was probably very sad times for the bison bird, but eventually one of them would land on a cow and say, hey, these guys aren't so bad to ride around on. But here's the thing is cows don't move around like the bison did.

They're not traveling, you know, 20 miles a day. So you might think, all right, they're leading a more sedentary life. These birds are now cowbirds. And so maybe they will change their behavior now that they're not, they don't need to do this. But they didn't. They said we love these cows, but we also kind of like this adaptation because, you know, who really wants to parent? They're young. Yeah, exactly.

We're not going to change anything. We're just going to stop, you know. wasting so much effort flying around all the time. I think there's, I don't remember, oh, there's five species of cowbirds, at least the parasitic versions. And the brown-headed cowbirds, the reason we're talking about the brownhead is because it is by far the least picky about what nest it lays its eggs in. Yeah.

So these are, you know, they're not large eggs. They're much smaller than like a chicken's egg, but they're probably not as tiny as, like, say, a robin's egg. They're middling-sized. eggs. Brown-headed cowbirds will lay their eggs in like a duck's nest. Yes. This little egg is like five times smaller than the other eggs around it. Obviously the ducks are like, what is this crud? And there are other bird species too that are kind of onto them. But a lot of times the birds will just, you know, play along or else just be fooled. Yeah, I think the finch is notorious for not

liking these eggs in their nest. They're not good host of these intruding eggs. So apparently they will, you know, they will die if they are left in charge of a finch. Other birds will get mad and puncture holes in the eggs or just, you know, beak them out of their nests. I think that catbirds do that. And then the yellow warbler has a strategy where they build a nest, they'll just nest a new nest on top of those, four little eggs, sometimes several new nests, like up to five new nest on top to really bury those guys.

I know. There's some, like, Tom and Jerry, like, scene that is making, that makes me think of. Yeah. But, like, it happens, like, really, really fast. Right, right. So, if, however, the cowbird happens to lay their egg in a nest that the bird is, like, just too lazy to do anything about, that cowbird is probably going to be the only hatchling that survives because it has adaptations to out-compete other birds in the nest that it's laid in.

Yeah. One of them is they have a shorter incubation period. So they're born first. I think sometimes up to three or four days before the other eggs might hatch. And so they got a little bit of a head start where they might take care of those extra eggs themselves. These baby birds might nudge those things out. So earlier, you know, we're saying there were some bird enthusiasts that I kind of think these are jerk birds. And in my mind, I was like, yeah, but, you know, like, these birds are doing their thing. Like, you can't get mad at nature for being nature. But then you get to this part and you're kind of like, oh, man, that really kind of sucks. Yeah. Yeah. So even if they're like, I'll let you guys stay and the cowbird doesn't push the other hatchlings out,

just from being a couple days older, they'll be able to muscle the other birds out of the way, to get the food, and they'll just continue to outpace them in their growth. And it might be so bad that the other hatchling starved because the cowbird doesn't let them get any of the food from the mother. Yeah. So I get it now, bird enthusiast. I have a question for you, though, Joshua, which is, with all this going on, not being raised by their parents, how in the world does the cowbird not start to take on traits of the bird that raised them? How do they remain cowbirds? I'm glad you asked that.

We don't really know, Chuck, as a matter of fact, there seems to be some sort of mechanism that prevents cowbirds from imprinting onto their adopted or foster parent from the other species. They're not exactly sure how this happens, but they think that cowbirds hatchlings are attuned to the sound of adult cowbirds in the area and that they're naturally attracted to it once they learn to fly, they'll go seek out other cowbirds. And I guess there they learn all of the cowbird habits like playing craps and smoking cigarettes and all that stuff.

And then also they do some weird nighttime excursions out of the nest while they're being raised. And I guess no one knows where they go. But that's something that they're like, that probably has something to go learn actual cowbird behavior too. Yeah. I wonder if when they are attuned to the sound of their own, if they eventually fly out when they're big enough to find them, if they're like, Mama? And the birds are like, don't look at me, buddy. Right, exactly. Even if it was their mom, they wouldn't take credit because it's a brown-headed cowbird.

Yeah, that's right. So if you want to find one of these, you might see them in your feeder. They are adapted to all over North America, rural, suburban, urban. You can find them everywhere. They're a smallish, a medium-sized smallish bird, whatever that means. But the males have a brown head that shines and shimmer is almost like a deep red in the sunlight. And they also have iridescent greenish-blue plumage on their body. The females, you're not going to really notice that much.

They're much less showy, but that's pretty standard for birds anyway. For sure. I think short stuff is about out, but since we have an extra 30 seconds, I'm going to take this opportunity to promote the new nature series from the BBC, the latest in their ongoing work with the great David Attenborough, Sir David Attenborough, Asia. Oh, nice. And it is fantastic stuff, as always, exactly what you would expect out of the BBC nature series. and Sir Ettenborough is 99 years old. He's going to be 100 in May. And he's still doing it.

And it's just some really amazing, striking stuff. Did they spell it like Steely Dan? Spell what like Steely Dan? Oh, no, no, no, no. No, they spell it. A-S-I-A. Okay, got you. Not A-J-A.

Well, there you go. You're welcome, BBC. Chuck just hooked you guys up with some viewers. I'm going to go check that out myself. It's great. You guys would like. I love it. Cool. Well, then I think now Chuck Short Stuff is out. Stuff You Should Know is a production of IHeartRadio.

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