Cowbird

a member of the blackbird family. The male has a coffee-colored head, neck and breast of brown, with a glossy black body, lustrous with bluish and greenish reflections. The female is clad in a dark, brownish gray suit. Range, from Texas to Manitoba and eastward. Small flocks of a dozen or fewer individuals follow cattle about the pasture and haunt the milking yard, apparently for the insects they can catch. The cowbird builds no nest. The female leaves the flock, sneaks about, and drops her egg in the nest of a sparrow or other small bird. She leaves it to be hatched and her young to be reared by the unsuspecting dupe. The young cowbird is large, greedy, and selfish, frequently shouldering the rightful occupants out of the nest. When well grown it leaves its drudging foster mother and joins those of its own kind. For the characteristics of an English bird of another family, but with similar habits, see CUCKOO.