I saw a female song sparrow trying to feed a newly fledged cowbird which
seemed twice her size. This was on the Sammamish River Trail.

Bill and Kate
Lake Sammamish

-----Original Message-----
From: Jo Powell [mailto:jhpowell at iea.com]
Sent: Friday, August 06, 1999 3:43 PM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Brown headed cowbirds

Hi, all:

Over the past few months I have had quite a few song sparrow fledglings
showing up at the suet blocks. A couple one week, then one or two younger
ones the next week and so on during June and July. About 3 weeks ago a song
sparrow kept coming to the block with two fledgling cowbirds it was trying
to feed; those are really BIG babies. The song sparrows have obviously been
quite successful here (outside Spokane - rural area/stream/brush) but are
also being parasitized. Are they usual victims? It seems to me someone on
Tweeters posted something about seeing a song sparrow feeding cowbird
young. The second part of my comment/question is about Spotted Towhees. I
have a huge brush pile next to a small stream next to my house. Every year
I have a lot of towhee fledglings (8-10 ... a lot for me) appearing over a
period of a couple of months - July & August...maybe early Sept. (can't
find my notes!). I have never seen a towhee with a cowbird fledgling. Have
towhees had more generations of exposure to cowbirds and so developed
defenses such as getting rid of the egg or driving off the cowbird before
she can lay an egg or any other schemes other birds may use? I would like
to think so!

If anyone has any experience or has read anything about these two species
and their interaction with cowbirds I would really appreciate any info you
can give me. Thanks in advance.

Regards, Joanne
jhpowell at snapwa.org
Reardan (Spokane) WA