{"id":32644,"date":"2015-07-10T04:41:39","date_gmt":"2015-07-10T10:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=32644"},"modified":"2015-07-10T09:18:12","modified_gmt":"2015-07-10T15:18:12","slug":"orange-crowned-warbler-parasitized-by-cowbirds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/07\/10\/orange-crowned-warbler-parasitized-by-cowbirds\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange-crowned Warbler Parasitized By Cowbirds"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\u00a01\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

On a visit to Cascade Springs I photographed this fledgling cowbird as it waited patiently for food to be delivered by\u00a0its “adoptive parent”, which I believe in this case turned out to be a female Orange-crowned Warbler (I hadn’t yet had the chance to adjust my camera settings to the situation, thus the excessive shutter speed).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\u00a0\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\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The youngster’s patience disappeared quickly when it spotted the adult warbler returning with food and it began to beg aggressively…<\/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<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0as she approached.<\/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<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/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\u00a0 <\/strong><\/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<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/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. I’m unsure of my tentative ID of the adult bird so if anyone can confirm or correct it I’d be appreciative.<\/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 or bad. It just is. True, because of the massive habitat alteration caused by humans, cowbirds are parasitizing species\u00a0in habitats that are historically new and that’s putting stress on some host species that aren’t yet equipped to handle it.<\/p>\n

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

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

The Brown-headed Cowbird is North America’s best known brood parasite.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32648,"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":[334,1291,392,395,391],"tags":[2573,780,2576,679,145,709,2575,2578,2572,2574,2577,311],"class_list":["post-32644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-brown-headed-cowbird-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-miscellaneous","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-brood-parasite","tag-brown-headed-cowbird","tag-cascade-springs","tag-field-marks","tag-fledgling","tag-food","tag-habitat-alteration","tag-merlin-bird-photo-id","tag-orange-crowned-warbler","tag-parasitism","tag-the-cornell-lab-merlin","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/brown-headed-cowbird-6222-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-8uw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32644","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=32644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}