{"id":170161,"date":"2025-11-20T06:04:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T13:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=170161"},"modified":"2025-11-20T06:12:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T13:12:37","slug":"orange-crowned-warbler-parasitized-by-brown-headed-cowbirds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/20\/orange-crowned-warbler-parasitized-by-brown-headed-cowbirds\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange-crowned Warbler Parasitized By Brown-headed Cowbirds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s post is a rerun, originally published just over ten years ago. A combination of factors, including overcast weather, seemingly endless medical appointments, x-rays, CT scans, MRI’s, and preparing for an upcoming visit from my daughter Shannon, have kept me out of the field for about two weeks.<\/em><\/p>\n

A recent image request from Siskiyou Audubon Society in Grants Pass Oregon asking me to use one of these warbler\/cowbird photos in their newsletter reminded me how much I like the behavior in these photos, even though I’d completely forgotten about them.<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s been so long, I think they deserve to be seen again. Besides, many current blog followers have never seen them.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Brown-headed Cowbird is North America’s best known brood parasite. The female cowbird lays her eggs in the nests of many different species and those eggs and resulting young are cared for by the host birds, often at the expense of their own offspring. That\u00a0parasitic relationship was demonstrated for me yesterday morning in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"brown-headed<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On a visit to Cascade Springs I photographed this fledgling cowbird as it waited patiently for food to be delivered by its “adoptive parent”, which in this case turned out to be a female Orange-crowned Warbler.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"brown-headed<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n

The youngster’s patience disappeared quickly when it spotted the adult female warbler flying in with food and it began to beg aggressively as she…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"brown-headed<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n

\u00a0approached with food.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"brown-headed<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0The meal, one of the whitest worms or insect larvae I’ve seen, was…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"brown-headed<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/p>\n

\u00a0enthusiastically accepted and gobbled down.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"brown-headed<\/p>\n

\u00a0 1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I include this image for two reasons: It shows the massive size difference between parasite and host and it allows a look at some of the other field marks of the warbler.<\/p>\n

Because of their parasitic ways, cowbirds are disliked by many but I just don’t feel that way. Parasitism is a natural relationship and I just see it as part of nature, neither good nor bad. It just is. True, because of the massive habitat alteration caused by humans, cowbirds are parasitizing species in habitats that are historically new and that’s putting stress on some host species that aren’t yet equipped to deal with it.<\/p>\n

But I don’t hold that against cowbirds. Others feel differently, I know.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of my favorite behavioral shots. (6 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,1291,7899],"tags":[1675,780,2576,2572,311],"class_list":["post-170161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-brown-headed-cowbird-birds","category-orange-crowned-warblers","tag-brood-parasitism","tag-brown-headed-cowbird","tag-cascade-springs","tag-orange-crowned-warbler","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/cowbird-and-orange-crowned-warbler-6222-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-Igx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170161"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170178,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170161\/revisions\/170178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}