What cues do brown-headed cowbirds use to locate red-winged blackbird host nests?

Animal Behaviour
E D Clotfelter

Abstract

I examined ecological and behavioural variables influencing the susceptibility of red-winged blackbird, Agelaius phoeniceus, nests to brood parasitism by brown-headed cowbirds, Molothrus ater, in a prairie-nesting population of redwings in southern Wisconsin. I compared the following variables between parasitized and unparasitized nests: proximity of nests to trees and other prominent perches; physical characteristics of nests such as nest height and cover; and aspects of host behaviour, including vocal behaviour and aggression directed towards female cowbirds. I used these data to discriminate among four non-exclusive hypotheses for how brood parasites locate host nests: the perch-proximity, nest-exposure, nesting-cue and host-activity hypotheses. Parasitized nests were significantly closer than unparasitized nests to trees in the 2 years of the study. There was no evidence that nest height or nest cover differed significantly between parasitized and unparasitized nests, suggesting that cowbirds do not use nest exposure as a cue for locating redwing nests. The responses of both parasitized and unparasitized redwings towards a female cowbird mount decreased with increasing mount presentation distance from the nest. There were n...Continue Reading

Citations

Sep 11, 2007·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Oliver Krüger
Dec 2, 2005·Annual Review of Psychology·David F Sherry
Dec 18, 2013·Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society·Manuel Soler
Sep 11, 2003·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Tomas Pärt, Blandine Doligez
Jun 19, 2010·Journal of Comparative Physiology. A, Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology·Megan D Gall, Jeffrey R Lucas
Dec 8, 2019·Scientific Reports·Attila MartonMiklós Bán

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