The brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) is a notorious thief. This is merely a young thief which I observed in my yard; it’s still in training, but when it is an adult it will look more like this:

It will search out a nest of an unsupecting bird, perhaps a sparrow or other songbird, and it will sneakily lay an egg when the parents are away. The egg will hatch and the other birds will raise it as their own. This practice is known as brood parasitism. The unsuspecting sap that raises the young cowbird will unfortunately feed its own young proportionately less and its fitness will suffer as a result.

Sometimes, the victim figures out that one of the eggs isn’t its own and disposes of it. If the cowbird sometimes returns to the scene of the crime and if it discovers its egg is missing, it may destroy the nest in a darkly Darwinian form of payback called “mafia behavior.” Sometimes, a cowbird egg is an offer you can’t refuse.