Christie, it didnt look the best, but one year when I couldnt find decals, I cut out the shape of a flying hawk from black construction paper, and taped it to the outside of my big windows. I have a good roof overhang, and it lasted all summer.

I just put cheap grape jelly on my shopping list. I put a hummingbird feeder up yesterday near the buckeye where they were hanging out. They are buzzing and doing the swing dance there already. I don't know if it has any nectar or do they just like its color.

Great pictures! We have the Orioles here in southwest Missouri, but so far, no Grosbeaks. I had them very briefly last year. I just put jelly on a flat saucer on a patio table right outside the window where the computer is so I can watch them. I take most pictures through the window. I took the screen off for the summer. The table might be 6 feet from where I watch. Lots of fun.

Thanks, Jane, for the references. I found the sites: Carl Strang's June 2009 entry and Stanford group essay on Cowbirds. I'm a little skeptical about Strang's statement on instinctual behavior - it may be true but it sounds more like a belief not based on any science. (Just a quibble on my part - if he'd said the juvenile cowbirds 'appear' to seek out other cowbirds, based on his observations, I wouldn't have been annoyed - but ascribing the behavior to 'instinct' is a jump too far). A very interesting fact in the Stanford essay is that only about 3 percent of cowbird eggs actually result in adults! That's major mortality. The cowbird female just keeps laying eggs and eggs and eggs ... "An average female lays about 80 eggs, 40 per year for two years. About 3 percent of those 80 eggs end up as adults -- an average of 2.4 adults per female. Clearly, such numbers more than compensate for the excessive loss of eggs and young in the nests of inappropriate hosts." I wonder how the current situation differs from the earlier situation when the cowbirds evolved to follow the bison herds and couldn't hang around to set up a proper nest without dropping behind and struggling to find food for themselves and the young. That behavior probably was dependent on the migration patterns of the bison, but nowadays the cowbirds have the luxury of being able to stay in the same area as their young, even if they don't get involved in the raising of them. As far as which came first, the parasitic behavior or the adaptation to it, I would think that the ability to lay so many eggs and the rapid maturation of the young would come early. There's an interesting entry in the Birds of North America Online site (subscription only) saying that "Most fledgling losses occurred 1 or 2 d after leaving nest". There are a lot of unknowns here, but it's an interesting topic for study. I'm glad I don't have to do the research myself, it would drive me crazy trying to pull together all of the variables. Claire