Mono Lake cowbirds and good friends

Back in March of 2020, at about the same time we were all peering into a void of COVID19 isolation, I got an email from my good old friend Mark saying he'd unearthed and revised a paper we had worked on together about 15 years ago, and asked if we would like to go forward with publishing. The other part of the "we" here is my other good old friend Chris who performed this research for his Master's. Chris started out as an intern on a riparian breeding bird study I was conducting along Mono Lake's tributary streams for Point Blue Conservation Science. He turned his passion of that place and those birds into a Master's project, sought out Mark as a collaborator, and he hasn't stopped doing really great work since.

Since our days at Mono Lake, we've all migrated east to the Midwest. It was great to be taken back to the cowbirds and Yellow Warblers and Song Sparrows of the Artemisia-filled air of the Mono Basin. Here we present estimates of breeding site fidelity and natal philopatry in cowbirds breeding along those creeks.

Hauber M.E., Heath S.K. & Tonra C.M. (2020) Direct estimates of breeding site fidelity and natal philopatry in brood parasitic Brown-headed Cowbirds Molothrus ater. ARDEA 108 (2): 129-137

Happy to share this work - request a reprint!

If you colorband 100 brood parasitic cowbird chicks, how many of them will come back as adults? Find it out soon @ARDEA_journal with @sachaheath @OSU_AvianEco https://t.co/rWvi9lcj3Y pic.twitter.com/bxG0bzYHQK

— Mark E. Hauber (@cowbirdlab) October 11, 2020