Comprehensive Description
provided by Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology
Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus
At Berkeley, California, on 10 May 1969, Harriet P. Thomas (1973:207) watched a starling repeatedly feeding a large fledgling brown-headed cowbird. The repetitive feeding indicated a foster-parent-parasite relationship, not a casual response to the food call of a strange fledgling. This observation is the first evidence that the starling can and does rear the parasite, and it is also the first record of the starling's being parasitized by the southwestern race of the cowbird M. ater obscurus. The two previous records of the starling as a cowbird victim were in Maryland and Illinois. The aggressive and pugnacious nature of the starling, coupled with its habit of nesting in holes, apparently keeps it largely free of cowbird molestation.
BLACK-CAPPED VIREO
- bibliographic citation
- Friedmann, Herbert, Kiff, Lloyd F., and Rothstein, Stephen I. 1977. "A further contribution of knowledge of the host relations of the parasitic cowbirds." Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology. 1-75. https://doi.org/10.5479/si.00810282.235
