Not Welcome Here

The dreaded

brown headed

cowbird. 

Wouldn’t fly away

even when

I clapped and shouted. 

Even when I left and

came back with camera.

You promiscuous parasite you.

You don’t have the decency

to build your own nest

or raise your own young.  

How despicable that your one-time mate has no place to lay her eggs and must place them in the nests of other species, causing that species to feed your greedy big babies to the peril of their own. 

Your photograph today, for just a few minutes,  had me admitting to your glossy beauty, until I read this from Wikipedia:

“Brown-headed cowbirds seem to periodically check on their eggs and young after they have deposited them. Removal of the parasitic egg may trigger a retaliatory reaction termed "mafiabehavior". According to one study the cowbird returned to ransack the nests of a range of host species 56% of the time when their egg was removed. In addition, the cowbird also destroyed nests in a type of "farming behavior" to force the hosts to build new ones. The cowbirds then laid their eggs in the new nests 85% of the time.^[22]”

You are unwelcome here, Mr. Cowbird, not that it makes a difference to you, not that I can do anything about your pillaging behavior. I feel as helpless about protecting my beautiful songbirds from you as I do about protecting Ukrainians from Russian invasion. You are the Putin of bird world, you are. 

~dkm