This apparent paradox makes sense when you realize that in cowbird groups, dominant males sing more attractive songs than males ranked lower on the pecking order. In her spare time she likes to explore wilderness. Forages by walking on the ground. White believes that for females, the songs serve as an honest signal of mate quality, since only high-ranking males can get away with singing attractive songs. As a control, they exposed other young males to a canary song followed by a mourning dove's coo. Unpopular due to their parasitic habit of laying eggs in nests of other birds. But young brown-headed cowbirds face a problem: they aren't raised by their own kind. Instead of using recordings of cowbird songs, the researchers trained the birds on canary songs. Because the chatter call is innate and is often paired with songs, the researchers suspected it might function as a password to help young cowbirds learn. David White, an animal behaviorist at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada, said he was initially skeptical of the password hypothesis when Hauber first proposed it nearly two decades ago. When the male nestlings were 70-80 days old -- old enough that they would likely have joined flocks of other cowbirds if they were in the wild -- the researchers began playing them pairs of vocalizations: first a song, then a chatter call. They use it in a variety of contexts, including immediately after hearing a song they like. But in cowbird society, it's not enough merely to be attractive to females. And passwords don't necessarily have to be song-related. Santa Cruz. In the wild, young males change their developing songs to match the songs of other cowbirds in their vicinity, leading to regional differences or "accents.". Females forgo building nests and instead put all their energy into producing eggs, sometimes more than three dozen a summer. Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren. Brown-headed cowbird. Search. No canary would be fooled. Visits feeders. Female cowbirds lay their eggs in the nests of more than 100 different kinds of birds, foisting the work of chick-rearing onto unwitting foster-parents. Instead, the naive males' songs seem to have particular acoustic features that make them attractive. Short tail and stocky body. And it's not just a matter of females liking novelty, because female cowbirds don't like the accents of wild males from distant locations. Eastern meadowlark. Female often removes an egg from "host" nest before laying one of her own. This password activates learning mechanisms in young cowbirds' brains, prompting them to remember other vocalizations they hear at the same time. Females are gray-brown overall, without bold streaks, but slightly paler throat. Females forgo building nests and instead put all their energy into producing eggs, sometimes more than three dozen a summer. When King and West placed formerly isolated males in aviaries with wild-caught cowbirds, the wild males attacked and often killed the naive males as soon as they tried to sing. But young brown-headed cowbirds face a problem: they aren't raised by their own kind. Brewer's blackbird. "[But] males respond really aggressively to a really good song, and these poor little guys get beaten up by the other males and they never actually get to reproduce.". Nala Rogers is a staff writer and editor at Inside Science, where she covers the Earth and Creature beats. But he said the new study, combined with some of White's own findings on the importance of the chatter call, has finally persuaded him that Hauber was right. Visits feeders. Before joining Inside Science, she wrote for diverse outlets including Science, Nature, the San Jose Mercury News, and Scientific American. Female may lay nearly one egg per day for several weeks, up to 40 in a season, exceptionally 70 or more. Stout bill.

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