[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Why cowbirds have a bad rep



Hi,

As far as cutting woodlands, poor old England and Western Europe lost most of
its forest and additional they use type of agriculture that eliminates most of
Skylarks, Tree Sparrows etc. England looks like a bare knee  comparing to
eastern US. So,  if some rare woodland siberian bird appear in England, it is
much easier to be found (by crowd of birdwatchers surrounding one hedge) than
any native warbler here! If you would like to see last european primeval
forest you have to go to Poland and visit Bialowieza. To find tiny Greenish
Warbler in 100 feet tall and 300 y.old Oak is like to find Blackpoll Warbler
in high tree here. It is a hard work.
Back to Cowbird, there is in a human nature to treat different nice-looking,
friendly-calling bird (number "coo-coo" notes called by Cuckoo means how many
children you will have... it is 15 sometimes) and blackish, somehow "serious
looking with pointed beak" bird. Well, anyway I prefer Cuckoo.


Mike

Joshua Stuart Rose wrote:

> Hi Carolinabirders,
>
> Great Crested Flycatcher joined the suburban migration crowd on Ninth
> Street today. Not a new yard bird though, had one last year around this
> time.
>
> On Tue, 30 Apr 2002 jwbloor@duke.edu wrote:
> >
> > Finally, I find it very curious that Brown-headed Cowbirds have
> > such a bad reputation here, when in England the parasitic Cuckoo
> > is beloved as the harbinger of spring.
>
> I would guess that at least some of this comes from the un-natural-ness of
> cowbirds through most of their US range. Correct me if I'm wrong, but
> Cuckoos are native throughout England. Cowbirds, meanwhile, are naturally
> foreign to the eastern US, originally dwelling on the Great Plains amid
> herds of Bison and prairie dog towns. They require very short grass or
> bare ground for foraging, and so followed grazing animals around.
>
> However, the clear-cutting of the eastern forests, and conversion of much
> of them to farms and ranches, opened a way east for the cowbirds. The age
> of the lawnmower and proliferation of lawns (often including bird
> feeders), golf courses, powerline cuts, and mowed roadsides and highway
> partitions has only increased the feeding bonanza, while fragmentation of
> the forests gives them ever more breeding opportunities. Not only did the
> Brown-headed Cowbird spread west from the Great Plains, but the Bronzed
> has to a lesser extent spread from the southwestern deserts, and the Shiny
> up from the Caribbean.
>
> Breeding birds in the grasslands and edges had lived with Brown-headed
> Cowbirds for so long that they often could recognize and abandon
> parasitized nests and start over, but forest interior species with only a
> few decades' experience with brood parasites have proven defenseless so
> far. And species which have become endangered primarily because of fire
> suppression and habitat destruction, like Kirtland's and Golden-cheeked
> Warblers and Black-capped Vireos, are being pushed ever closer to
> extinction by cowbird parasitism.
>
> So why are cowbirds so unpopular in the US? Maybe because they keep
> reminding us how badly we've screwed up this country's wildlife habitat!
> Want to do something about it? The best defense is large unfragmented
> blocks of habitat. Keep large forest tracts intact. Try to promote new
> forest habitat along the edges of existing tracts. Convince people to stop
> mowing everywhere, so the grass gets long and cowbirds stop feeding there.
> And push for new roads, golf courses, playgrounds, housing developments,
> and other lawnmower-intensive areas to be clumped together, as far from
> forest as possible.
>
> Good birding,
>
> Josh
>
> Joshua S. Rose
> Duke University
> Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.)
>
> jsr6@duke.edu
> http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/

--
************************************************
Michal Skakuj  Ph.D.
4600 University Drive # 1312
Durham, NC 27707
phone, fax: (919) 402 9961
mobile phone: 919 599 3040