On Saturday, during the Introduction to Birding workshop at
walkers, St. Andrew, we spoke briefly about the Shiny Cowbird’s brood parasitic
nature, mainly in reference to the Carib
Grackle as host. This point was
forcefully highlighted when on leaving the classroom we witnessed a noisy
Shiny-cowbird chick pleading incessantly to his much smaller surrogate parent,
a Barbados Bullfinch. I hope this is not
going to be a norm as I am not sure how much our lone endemic can take.
