The farmer and the cowbird ...

THE cuckoo, alas, has no respect for the ordinary decencies of family life; it lays its eggs in other birds’ nests.

On hatching, a cuckoo chick will push the eggs and young of its host out of the nest and pester the duped foster parents until they exhaust themselves feeding it. Nor does the female cuckoo take any interest in the subsequent fate of her abandoned offspring.

Our cuckoo doesn’t visit North America but the Land of the Free has its own avian conman. The brown-headed cowbird, no relation of the cuckoo, dupes other birds into raising her young. She’s more of an ordinary decent criminal however, not wantonly cruel to her victims. This black finch-like bird is the size of a starling. Only males have the brown head.