HOST RELATIONS OF PARASITIC COWBIRDS 49 



Red-headed Woodpecker 



Melanerpes erythrocephalus (Linnaeus) 



The red-headed woodpecker is a rarely victimized bird. It is 

 mentioned in the lists of cowbird victims by Bendire and by Davie 

 without any supporting details. The late Lynds Jones wrote me 

 many years ago that he had taken a cowbird's egg from the nest of a 

 red-headed woodpecker in Ohio, Whether this was also the basis for 

 Davie's and Bendire's listings, I cannot say. 



Eastern Kingbird 



Tyrannus tyrannus (Linnaeus) 



The Idngbird is an uncommonly used host; onl}^ 15 actual instances 

 have come to my notice. Several writers have listed it as a cowbird 

 victim, possibly on the basis of the same few published cases. The 

 actual records involve two races of the parasite, ater and artemisiae; 

 the geographic spread of the records extends from Ontario, Rhode 

 Island, and New York, to Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, 

 North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. 



The pugnacious disposition of the kingbird probably accounts for 

 its relative freedom from the attention of the cowbird, but once the 

 parasitic egg is laid in the nest, the kingbird takes care of it as do the 

 other victims. Kells (1885) found j^oung cowbirds in Idngbirds' nests; 

 Posson (1890) found a parasitized nest at Medina, New York; and 

 Gregg (1891, p. 26) reported a kingbird feeding a young cowbird along 

 with its own offspring in Chemung County, New York. A. J. Berger 

 (1960, p. 118) near Ann Arbor, Michigan, on June 30, 1956, found a 

 nest containing a j^oung kingbird in pin feathers and a fully feathered 

 young cowbird, which fluttered out of the nest at his approach but 

 which remained in the nest after being banded. R. M. Anderson 

 (1907, pp. 299, 300) wrote that in Iowa he found the kingbird to be the 

 only species which "objected" to the cowbird, but he did not say 

 exactly what he meant by this term. Possibly he was referring to 

 Savage's (1897, p. 6) note of a parasitized nest from which the cowbird 

 egg disappeared, presumably removed by the kingbird. Coues (1878, 

 p. 608) recorded an instance of "objection" in his description: the 

 two-storied nest of a kingbird, with a cowbird's egg buried in the lower 

 part and 2 eggs of the Idngbird on top, was found near Frenchman's 

 River, Montana, July 9, 1874. 



Western Kingbird 



Tyrannus verticalis Say 



This Idngbird is in the present catalog solely on the strength of its 

 inclusion in a compiled list of brown-headed cowbird victims in Ober- 

 holser's unpublished manuscript on the birds of Texas. No actual 



