Hey tweeter dude's, just got back from watching a Molothrus ater show - awesome!
Like, I know, dude, Molothrus ater might sound like the name of a heavy metal band, but really it's just the Latin binomial for Brown - headed Cowbird. The "high-priced name" some would say. Just learned that.
I stumbled across that funny name because I was looking up info about the Cowbird on Seattle Audubon's Birdweb, and there it was. Probably like most of you I don't pay too much attention to the Latin names of birds because bird namer's have done such a good job on the common names that we all don't really have to remember the "scientific" names, unlike many other animals, plants, fungoids, etc.
This all came up as I sat here on my computer in Port Townsend and noted a female Cowbird flying up to the Fuchsia magellanica just outside the window. The cowbird got run off by a male Rufous hummer in short order- the fuchsia is now blooming and the cowbird got in the hummers airspace. You know how those hummers are.
Well, yesterday I saw the female cowbird again at the fuchsia bush. This time run off by a Towhee, that seemed to come out of nowhere. Putting those two cowbird sightings together I suspected the cowbird was up to something, as they are prone to do, like trying to find somebody else's nest to lay their egg in.
Just a few minutes ago I went out to do a quick check for a Towhee nest in the bush, which is pretty small. And while trying to do a gentle look a bird crept out of the far side of the bush, which my dear ol' dad saw; "hey there's a bird!" he said. And it was the Towhee, doing a killdeer- like "decoy-run" across the lawn, with it's white spotted tail fanned out and held low, obviously trying to get my attention. The female jumped on the nearby fence top, joined by the male and they both started giving distress calls. My dad thought it was kind of cool, and so did I. We then left the Towhee's alone.
Cowbirds have an unsavory reputation, given their nest parasitism habits, but I've always found them interesting. Looking up the Latin name a bit I could only find that Molothrus was just a label for cowbird, but ater meant variously " dark, brooding, malicious, greedy fellow"
"Time out!" I cried, "that's avian misandry! Oh sure label the guy, when it's the female doing the dirty work of nest invasion. We all hear about misogyny all the time - hey, what about that darn misandry"- a word so rarely used I had to search for it.
Oh well, nobody's perfect, even the male Cowbird. Both male and female are attractive in their own way, and the male has that delicious call that sound's so much like water.
Names and words are sort of funny, dude. Even girls call each other dude! these days.
Jeff Gibsonwatching the Cows, inPort Townsend Wa