Tony,
I don’t know about the numbers,per se., but I recall a CBC count of 3,000
Bronzed Cowbirds reported from Galveston.
As for the behavior you observed, in American blackbird species, adult
males move south before the adult females and the birds-of-the-year birds.
What is interesting to me is that the social parasites come together in
flocks for migration
Keith Arnold
On Sat, Aug 27, 2022 at 8:10 PM Anthony Hewetson <fattonybirds@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Greetings All:
On Thursday morning (8/25/2022) I saw a fairly large number of Bronzed
Cowbirds foraging on the lawn, below a decent canopy of liveoaks, at
the quad on the TTU HSC Campus in Lubbock - I tallied 28 birds during
a single scan. Slightly later in the day all of the birds assembled
(I can't think of a better word) along the edge of one of the roofs
and then flew off to the southwest. I have back-up binoculars in my
office and was able to confirm the identification, to species, of each
bird and there were an astonishing 42 - all male - Bronzed Cowbirds
lined up along the edge of the roof before they flew off..
We have grown accustomed to largeish groups of all male Bronzed
Cowbirds in grassy areas in Lubbock (the edges of Lake Six, the TTU
Campus, the TTU HSC Campus, Maxey Park, and probably some sites I am
overlooking) over the last few months (a newish phenomenon for our
region) but this is a remarkable number for a single sighting in the
region and seems, to me to be an unusual behavior.
Now to get to my questions. Is this number or behavior consistent
with what has gone on in other parts of Texas? It reminds me of the
migratory assemblages of other species in the region which makes me
wonder if this could merely represent a migratory assemblage?
Regards; Anthony Hewetson; Lubbock
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