Cowbird Fledgling Question!!!

How/when do they get hooked back up with their own kind?? Do they ever stay with what ever raised them?? Inquiring minds want to know??

I read that the Cowbird parents keep their eye on their babies, starting with the eggs. After they are raised by the surrogate parent the Cowbird's come and claim their offspring and off they go to live happily ever after. I cannot verify that Nanny because you know I have CRS disease...and unfortunately I can't even remember where I read it! Oh to have a young mind again.....LOL! Hope someone with the real scoop will let us know what the deal is!

We've got an even stranger one on this side of the Pond. Our only brood parasite is the Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus); the adults lay their eggs in other nests, and then, before the young have fledged, migrate south to Africa in July.

So young Cuckoos not only need to know who they are, but also that they have to fly to Africa for the winter, which they do in August or September. The foster parents don't, they stay here all year or just migrate a short distance. So a young Cuckoo has to have a map of Africa somewhere in its brain. Plus instructions on how to cross the Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara Desert. How that's done, no-one knows yet.

Resin

Good grief..poor young Cuckoos!

Thank goodness I am not a Cukoo....uhmm...you know what I mean..right?? lol

I believe they are genetically imprinted on their own kind - they will just accept food from whatever adult happens to offer it. I have seen young cowbirds begging from other cowbirds, which, if they raised their own chicks, would seem normal as in other birds. Usually when a different species "weans" their offspring, they no longer stay in the general area, but go wherever their preferred foods are more readily available. Since I have seen cowbirds actually feeding a young cowbird, I supposed they use the offered food to bond them to the flock. Once the young have bonded, they are somehow taught to forage for themselves. That is just from my own observations. Since my dog died and there is no more dog food readily available in my yard, the cowbirds seem to have found other regular haunts - and more pretty songbirds have returned.

I have read that female cowbirds are rather cunning when picking out a nest to raid - they actually have been documented as spying on extra noisy females of the blackbird persuasion - the female blackbird that makes more noise on exiting their nests are usually the ones that get raided... blabbermouths.

I don't have much to add to what's been said. I too have wondered when and how the youngster realized he wasn't like his parents, but it must be a great day for the parents. Here's one from a couple of weeks ago.

Oh my!! Is that a Carolina Wren??

Sure is. Here's a better view.