Talk:Cowbird

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reverted last edit, does not apply to all cowbird species, jimfbleak 06:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

interesting[1] 11:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the comment that the cowbird's egg doesn't look much different than the host bird's eggs. It uses many birds as hosts and the egg often does look different in color and size. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.179.21.59 (talk) 15:03, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The wikipedia article says: "The cowbird eggs do not look much different from the hosts' eggs"

This is not true at all. You can look at the photos of the eggs - they are different - the color is different and the size is different. There are two possibilities for the host birds that don't reject the eggs: 1. They can't distinguish between them. (which doesn't mean that the eggs look the same. It means that the eggs look the same to them.) 2. They have no adaptation to throw eggs out of the nest or destroy them. They don't know how to do it or never thought about it. 3. They can still profit somehow from growing Cowbird chick. (in some cases they still grow their chicks together with the cowbird chick)

I personally don't know the right reason or it might be even combination between them.

Anyways, the original sentence is wrong and should be changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by M gerzon (talk • contribs) 19:20, 6 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree. The cowbird has over 220 host species species. Also there was has been a few studies done about why the hosts have not adapted to throwing the egg out of the nest. One study looked into how the cowbirds depredate nests that have rejected the egg. So it may be in the benefit to the hosts to not eject in hopes that they can have some of their eggs survive. I think it was called the Mafia affect or something like that. Either way more studies need to be done. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.253.188.24 (talk) 05:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]