Woman is Fickle

Oil in Panel - 4 x 4 inches

     It’s New Year’s Eve and some of you might be indulging in celebratory food for the occasion. So, it seems appropriate to bring up the variety of ways birds feed their young... or don't. 

     There are birds that feed their young for months, some only a matter of weeks, and then there are those that don’t feed their chicks at all. Bald eagles are examples of birds who feed their young for months before they fledge. On the opposite spectrum, brush turkeys don’t feed theirs at all. Their babies must fend for themselves upon hatching in order to survive. That’s right. No parental help whatsoever. Chicks, find your own food, we’re outta here, says mom and dad. Crazy, right? 

     When it comes to Eastern Towhees, they’ll feed their young for almost two weeks before fledging occurs. Nothing unusual about that. However, Eastern Towhees belong to a group of birds that will feed other bird species, too. They’ve been known to feed young House Finches, Field Sparrows, and Northern Mockingbirds. In 2007, in the first documented case involving Wood Thrushes, a male Eastern Towhee was observed feeding three Wood Thrush chicks and a baby Brown-headed Cowbird in the same nest for at least five days. Not only that, the towhee participated in the removal of fecal sacs as well, all the while the Wood Thrush parents were around and seldom reacted to its presence. 

     Numerous questions abound. Did the Wood Thrushes welcome the towhee’s help? Were they frightened by the towhee? Too scared to take aggression? Would aggression have put their chicks at risk, or themselves? Were they learning from the towhee? Did the towhee provide added protection from predators? Did the towhee not have a family of his own? If so, why not? Did auditory cues play a part, i.e. chicks begging for food? Would the towhee have reacted differently if there were less chicks in the nest, or without the cowbird?

     There are a multitude of ways baby birds obtain food for survival. Parental care directed toward unrelated young is just one example of why I find birds so fascinating. 

     My oil painting of this male Eastern Towhee was referenced from Wild River State Park, MN. He was singing his heart out in a dense alder thicket, trying to attract a mate. In my experience, singing towhees are usually easy to spot, especially when they’re singing from high up in a tree. But finding this one was tricky because it had good cover and was far away from my walking path. 

     Sometimes I associate human music with bird song, and this towhee – without a doubt – reminded me of Giuseppe Verdi’s “La donna é mobile”. One of the verses from that song, La donna é mobil, translates to Woman is fickle, and because this bird was trying to attract a female in his most spirited and persistent voice, I titled this little painting after one of Verdi’s most famous arias of all time. 

     Happy New Year everyone! Make time to see more art shows in 2025. 

     Stay wild, my friends.

 

References

Ackerman, J. (2020). The Bird Way. Penguin Press.

Eastern Towhee, Life History, All about Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (n.d.). https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Towhee/lifehistory

Schaeffer, K. M., Brown, W. P., & Shriver, W. G. (2009). Misdirected Parental Care by a Male Eastern Towhee at a Wood Thrush Nest. The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, 121(2), 427–429. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20616918