Indiana Nature Notes for November

Hitchin' a Ride

At Kankakee Sands we often have visitors ask, jokingly, if they can ride the bison that graze our prairies. Oh gosh, no! That would be terribly dangerous for a human to do!! But… brown-headed cowbirds hitch a ride on the backs of bison regularly!

The brown headed cowbird gets its name from the stunningly beautiful males with brown feathers on their head and a black iridescent body. Both male and female cowbirds have stout black bills, built for cracking seeds. Females are covered from head to tail in soft-colored, buffy brown feathers. When they are all lined on up the spine of the bison, the brown-headed cowbirds look like robin-sized jeweled adornments on the backs of the magnificent bison.

Cowbirds do not make nests of their own to raise their young. Instead, female cowbirds lay one egg in another species’ nest, such as a meadowlark or a red-winged black bird. And because of this nest parasitism behavior, the brown-headed cowbird has a bad reputation!

Sometimes, the brown-headed cowbird egg will be detected amongst the other eggs in the next and will be rolled out by the nest onto the ground. But more often than not, the brown-headed cowbird egg will go unnoticed, and when it hatches before the other eggs (and it always does!), it will get fed more than its nest mates.

Though this may seem like a dirty trick for the brown-headed cowbird to play on other bird species, it is really a brilliant strategy! If the cowbird is reliant on the bison for food, then when the bison roam, so too must the cowbirds. Staying in one place to sit on a nest just isn’t an option for a bird that co-evolved with the bison. So, they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, and off they go hitchin’ a ride with the bison!

Fall is a great time of year to see the brown-headed cowbirds. They are known to not only ride on the backs of bison. They also congregate in large flocks of more than 10,000 birds comprised of cowbirds, starlings and blackbirds.

At Kankakee Sands, we have recently created new visitor facilities, including shade pavilions and viewing areas with spotting scopes. We are hopeful that with all the new visitor improvements at Kankakee Sands, viewing bison will be easier and more enjoyable. And when you look through the spotting scopes, be sure to look for the beautiful cowbirds hitching a ride!