Neanderpundit

It’s probably not nice to paint ben-gay on the feeder poles to keep the squirrels off them, but it’s a hoot watching them scrub their nuts on the grass afterwards.

I see these little bastards on a regular basis. But I never associated them with their song, which sounds like a ringtone.

Dull and boring things, they are the welfare queens of the bird world. True cuckolds, they never nest or settle, they lay their eggs, lots of them, in other birds nests, early in the season. Their eggs hatch sooner, and as they grow they often push the other eggs or nestlings out and/or kill them, while the adoptive parents continue to feed it.

The call sounds like a trickle of water and the first few times I heard it I thought there was a leak somewhere.

I suppose that everyone has a survival strategy, I got precious little use for parasites, though.