True Facts: Parasitic Birds
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References:
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Caves EM, Stevens M, Spottiswoode CN. 2017 Does coevolution with a shared parasite drive hosts to part
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Caves EM, Stevens M, Iversen ES, Spottiswoode CN. Hosts of avian brood parasites have evolved egg
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Grim, T., Samaš, P., Moskát, C., Kleven, O., Honza, M., Moksnes, A., Røskaft, E. and Stokke, B.G. (2011),
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Kilner, R.M. and Spottiswoode, C.N. (2020), Multimodal mimicry of hosts in a radiation of parasitic finches*.
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Jelínek, V., Šulc, M., Štětková, G. and Honza, M. (2021), Fast and furious: host aggression modulates
behaviour of brood parasites. Ibis, 163: 824-833. doi.org/10.1111/ibi.12930
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Cuckoos: Evidence for an Avian Mafia? Evolution, 49(4), 770-775. doi.org/10.2307/2410329
Spottiswoode, Claire N. and Koorevaar Jeroen 2012A stab in the dark: chick killing by brood parasitic
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Wang LW, Zhong G, He GB, Zhang YH, Liang W. Egg laying behavior of common cuckoos
( Cuculus canorus): Data based on field video-recordings. Zool Res. 2020 Jul 18;41(4):458-464.
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Common Cuckoo “Bubbling” Call. Front. Ecol. Evol. 9:725222. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2021.725222
York JE, Davies NB. Female cuckoo calls misdirect host defences towards the wrong enemy.
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PMID: 29185512.
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Ok
Done
Thanks for the reminder to use my Curiousity stream.
Ok, but it's *cheaper* per day for leap years.
"Curiosity stream, just a few cents a day, a little more on a leap year"
Such attention to detail!
Additional fun fact! As part of the evolutionary slap-fight, some of these song birds will sing to their young and/or unhatched chicks. Then later on will only care for the ones that can repeat the song back to them. Parasites that enter the nest too late or lack the proper vocal mimicry will often be either thrown out of the nest or simply neglected until they starve.
And just like how some parasite parents will return to attack the nest if their young aren't cared for, some species of hosts have adapted to simply not negotiate with terrorists and will _choose_ to abandon their own nest if they detect a parasite. Which is amazing because it sucks for the individual, but ensures the species as a whole is less likely to be targeted by the parasites in the first place! Evolution gets INTENSE when the next generation of bebes are both the stakes _and_ the hostages!
I learned that from a TED-X video! Fascinating stuff!
Props to them for saying screw you to the birb mafia.
I read "bebes" in Ze Frank's voice. Lol
Jesus Christ, just raise your own damn kids for Pete's sake.
@@benthomason3307 it a bit more complicated than just raising your own chicks. Cowbirds for example have to be continuously on the move to get enough food (they follow herds of grazing animals) so making a stationary nest conflict with their feed strategy. Also evolution is a bitch and if brood parasitism works it less cost to the parasite and thus more energy to focus to making more babies. Of couse it creates an arms race and a balancing act between the hosts and parasites. Actually some of the more interesting dynamics (at least to me) are between parasites and hosts species as they "negotiate" through evolution an acceptable/stable balance between them
I find it hilarious that those parents being a quarter of the size of the baby, and being like "you're skin and bones, eat why don't you?!". But pretty sad for the babies who get yeeted out.
The expression "bird brain" is half-true. Birds are very smart, but they are also rather stubborn and extremely impulsive. If a mother bird decides that it's her chick, nothing can convince her otherwise.
This holds true even for birds whose life cycles include infanticide - be it done by parents or between the little fellas - as a natural selection tool or population (self) culling method.
It's difficulty to put this on human terms, but the closest would be "I put you on this world, and I can take you out of it if I want" and "I love you all... So break me a leg by making it so I have to love less of you!".
Curiously, some other birds promptly abandon their nests once the female is done laying, and (less commonly) for others one of the parents leaves the care to the other (usually the male since birds usually have high metabolic rates and fast life cycles and laying eggs full of delicious yolk is rather energy and time demanding for the female).
It reminds me of Italian grandma 😅
Yeah it is sad for us humans but it’s all just nature and the circle of life.
@@TRak598 love watching bird behavior, especially corvids and those laser birds (the name completely eludes me, but they mimick the noise of chainsaws, axes and sound like lasers). Corvids are extremely intelligent, use tools and practice trial and error, as well as being able to grasp complex concepts, thought previously to be exclusive to humans, such as leaving a small amount of food, to get rewarded with more, learnt in humans at around 3-4 years of age
@@SWISS-1337 lyrebirds
I like how they evolved for thousands of years to make their eggs look like the host babies instead of learning how to make a fu*king nest and little bit of parenting.
We humans have parents with the same issues.
They have a reason, tho. These parents usually munch on highly toxic stuff.
In Evolution an adaptive fitness is anything that works and Parasitism is one of the most successful strategies that exist. You might be entirely dependent on another species but it will never completely fail until the host is completely extinct. There are always enough cracks to slip into and as a Parasite you can dedicate your entire being into finding those cracks and after that everything is cared for by your Host. It's why viruses who are the ultimate parasites are there since the beginning of time and will be there until the end of time.
repent unto God
@@Baggerz182 no
Some fun new science here:
In recent months a group in Norway found a population where the parasites were using their superior size to PROTECT nests of host species. Even those that didn't get parasitized. These protected nests seemed to have increased success for all offspring involved as both parents were able to collect food. There was simply no need for mom and dad to protect the nests, because something bigger and meaner was invested in their safety. In one instance there was even an observation of a parasite providing warmth for the chicks while mom and dad were out gathering food.
Those who reported this behaviour proposed that this might be a case of symbiosis growing out of parasitic behaviours. Increased host success means increased host availability. Increased parasite success means increased protection for the hosts.
I know its been a few months since you posted this, but do you have a link to the study? this sounds fascinating
I would also like to see the the research and we need to push this comment up
i guess it’s becoming mutualism now
Fascinating! I would love to learn more about this unexpected symbiosis, and I'm sure others would too. Do you have a link to the study?
Actually, it would help the host if there are few remaining. If the parasite is the only existing as it is always, it does not make sense.
Once my brother and I found a baby bird on the ground, peeping away. We looked all around for it's nest and it's mother, but didn't find any birds that seemed interested. Eventually we took it in so it wouldn't die, in hopes of it getting strong enough to fly. So we made a little nest in a box for it and bought mealworms to feed it.
It sounds cute, but that baby bird was anything but. It was hideous. And incredibly loud and needy. It was a weight around our neck for at least a month. This hideous thing, peeping all hours of the night for food. We eventually looked it up and found out it was a common cowbird. Not very exciting or anything. We knew about Cuckoos and joked that we had been victims of brood parasitism. Eventually it grew out all its feathers and left the nest.
Today I find out that cowbirds are in fact obligate brood parasites. That baby was probably kicked out of the nest of a blue jay or something, only to wind up in our nest. We were had.
imagine its descendants deliberately trying to get their young rescued by humans
@@Romanticoutlaw the industrial revolution wasnt long enough ago that evolutionary pressures has had time to affect things like mammals and birds, but in years to come?
absolutely will animals evolve to abuse human caregiving. the house cat has learnt to mimmick the call of a child, but that took a thousand years or more.
@@jamham69 I'm imagining this in a few thousand years.
_"Babe wake up, a new animal just learned to be cute! Let's adopt it!"_
_"Babe wake up, new domesticated species just dropped"_
@@Drekromancer shiiiiit this horrifying man eating lizard is ADORABLE
Imagine being in labor and having to break into your neighbor's house to deliver. That is how parasitic birds do.
Then fool the neighbor into believing the baby is theirs or threaten to burn their house down if they don’t take care of it.
@@generalalduin9548 truee
"Wait. Didn't we just have two kids? Oh well, whatever."
Just swap babies in nursery
@@onazram1 what? bot?
Before you question the intelligence of birds, do keep in mind, all bird parenting is "Ok, so this one didn't die"
Not too many generations back, that was fairly true about _all_ of Earth's species. Visit an old cemetery. Lots of little gravestones with dates very close together, some just one date.
Yeah, especially at 9:50 where the cuckoo tosses out the baby cuckoo... LOL
crows are smart, the rest is the rest.
@@VoltisArt This right here is why people think everybody died at 40 back in the day. There's a common misunderstanding of what "average life expectancy" is or means. The average life expectancy for humans up until the last 100 years or so was generally less than 45. The reason isn't just because everybody magically died at 45, it's the more morbid fact that a LOT of children died very young. If 2 people die with 1 at 40 and 1 at 50, the average is 45. But if an 80 year old and a 10 year old die, the average is also 45.
Basically, people still lived well into their 50s, 60s 70s or even older, but a LOT of children died very young for the vast majority of human history, so the "average" life expectancy remained low.
I always wondered why birds raise these parasites even when they outgrow them. I would have never guessed it could be like a mafia situation "be nice to my boy. I'd hate to see a very unfortunate accident come to your home" 😭😂
I find it interesting that all these complex behaviors and actions of the parasitic bird are entirely instinct. They're born to non-parasitic parents that wouldn't teach them any of these things.
Yes - it is crazy... and some of the parasites completely mimic the calls of their hosts for their entire life... while others, like the cowbird need to get "activated" by a special cowbird call as adults
@@zefrank It's like the Manchurian Candidate but birb
@@zefrank so…they’re sleeper agents?
@im calling saul I'd tell you to tell someone who cares, but no one does anyway
@@zefrank just throwing this out there but it would be really interesting to do a video about predators that use lures to catch their prey. Like the spider tailed snake, how in the world did they evolve like that?
“Like a bat trapped inside a scrotum” is simultaneously the most hilarious and most accurate description of a baby bird I’ve ever heard
And terrifying. Don't forget nightmare fuel! I have nothing against bats or scrotums, but the two combined with the words "trapped inside?"
*_And I'm not even claustrophobic!_*
🤣🤣🤣
For as beautiful as birds can be, the babies are UGLY. It’s kind of poetic
*bebe
You have more experience seeing scrotums than I do, so I'll take your word.
This isnt even the most brutal mother nature has to offer but i swear a hidden phobia unlocks every time I see clips of the mother feeding a parasitic chick double their size.
truly the spitting image of gluttony
I love this guy’s analogies, they’re so silly yet accurate
"It's like taking a dump in another man's pool: you gotta be quick." and "It's like giving birth in a boxing ring." Those two lines really had me laughing.
My favorite line was, "It's like trying to fit a bowling ball through a glory hole." 😂
"not even born, and already an accessory to murder" got me good.
!!
My favorite one was, “let’s see there’s one… welp, that’s good enough for me”
A fart in a hurricane?
The idea that there's almost a selectively bred instinct to raise the brood parasites due to nest destruction cutting off gene pools is terrifying.
their mafia theory is nonsense, "kicking the aliens out is a bad idea" is an acquired response which does not get passed down... And the host can produce more eggs anyway.
@e no
A protection racket so successful, it's written into the instincts of both species.
"Nice next you got there," said the parasite bird inside the mind of the host species, "would be a shame if something _happened_ to it."
*New York gangster accent* "Now I want you to raise these eggs, or else the nest gets it. Capiche?"
@@MissPoplarLeaf 🐣🤵🤌
The closing line had me cackling "fine, Jerry, fine. Everything is a glory hole."
can you do goldfish next? I'm so curious about their life outside tanks and the different species that have weird "bobble heads" and inflated eyes would be a great bit for comedy
I thought you might like to know. goldfish do not exist in the wild. every single variety of goldfish you have ever seen or heard about is completely man made and bred to look like that, just like dogs. they were all bred from a species of carp that just looks like a boring old brown carp, nothing special to it whatsoever. google it. any wild goldfish that exist were released into the wild by humans, are invasive, eat anything smaller than themselves and should be caught and kept or exterminated as they do an extreme amount of damage to local ecosystems.
That’s just humans breeding them to be more and more deformed, cause we do fucked-up things like that to animals.
@@Ravie3 oh it was selective breeding?? Gross.
That's selective breeding my friend, that's not wild goldfish. They have be chosen to be really rare with those bobble heads, big tails, inflated eyes, ignoring the bad health consequences of it. It's the same with all domesticated animals, like dogs. But it will be an interesting video talking about this not ethical breeding, choosing the deformed ones and being the most common kinds of breeding.
@@hanniaedithmartinezadame794
Yeah, wild goldfish look a lot like your average carp. A lot of your typical goldfish are actually stunted in their growth and grow to be much bigger if let loose in a larger body of water. They are actually an invasive species in some parts of the U.S.
ZeFrank is exactly 50 % incredible nature documentary with stunning imagery and 50 % comedy derived from the madness of both the narrator AND nature !
SO well put!
You wordsmyth! ;)
And Jerry! 😆
He's too incredible for just 100% You gotta tack on like 23% wicked smart.
I think it's 100% of both. Because neither comes at the expense of the other.
Precisley
this really makes me think of Changelings from Irish Folklore. It all lines up pretty well, the original babies would be kidnapped or killed and an imposter was left in its place for the parents to raise
Genuinely terrifying. That's some Lovecraft's Pickman's Model shit.
I wouldn't be surprised if they got the idea from mockingbirds
Well, no *sus* comments here...
when the baby is sus
@@internetstranger_ That im calling saul one is "A BIT SUSSY!" to me.
I LOVE that you cite all your sources at the end, thank you for that. You rock.
Those lil birds raising a big baby probably think that they have given birth to a giant and that it's a next step of their evolution
I'm reminded of a story I read about a bird that had such a strong "feed the upward mouths of the young" instinct it was bringing stuff to fish in a pond that had learned to stick their mouths out.
That's hilarious! 😂
How did the fish even know there are things outside there pound? I mean it would be hard to see from the perspective or?
@@mrnice4434 Do you know how the refraction of light affects vision from under water to above? It's actually quite fascinating, you only see at angles of about 40-50° (can't remember exact angle) or smaller form the normal of the surface. So when the surface is calm, there's a ring directly above your eyes through which you can see the "outside world, and at the edges of it you see what's along the surface of the water. So you basically get 180° vision in a ~90° cone, with a fisheye effect (wonder where that name came from). You can try it out when you are swimming by trying to dive without disturbing the surface, and looking up. It looks weird, but things aren't that hard to see, just distorted. Of course it only really works well with calm surface, but I imagine the fish would not do this when it's wavy anyway.
Pond fish with a public feeder beg all the time, if memory serves, this happened at a zoo with such a setup.
@@mrnice4434 same way feeding a goldfish works. Eventually it will learn the behaviors that result in getting fed. In this case, it probably started with one fish just having its mouth out of the water, and it got rewarded by the bird feeding it. It likely tried it again, and other fish likely also started doing it.
It's believed that the reason cowbirds are brood parasites is because they evolved to follow herds of ungulates like bison and eat the insects they stir up. With the herd always moving they couldn't afford to settle in one spot and build a nest.
Interesting hypothesis.
Very similar to the mutualistic relationships between cattle egrets and bison, or the opportunistic black caracaras consuming ticks and fleas that accumulate on ungulates. The hypothesis that brood parasites evolved to live predominantly nomadic lifestyles is what induced the nesting adaption of interspecific brood parasitism is plausible.
I know people who are like that
Kinda like parents who have a job out of town and leave their kids with the grandparents instead of taking them with.
That's an interesting hypothesis. It does provide a good explanation.
This video adds a whole lot of context to finding those baby birds who've "fallen" out of their nests. Imagine being targeted by a family of complete strangers because your parents had the audacity to give birth to you
The little parent bird doesnt even seem to realise the baby bird its feeding is so friggen huge compared to it hahahha
"Ooooh these worms must be extra nutricious, youre getting so big?"
I knew of parasitic birds before, but damn, I had no idea they went to such extreme lengths to mimic and defend their turf! The babies being instinctually driven to blend in is wild!
Yes, that's what's wild. Not babies instinctually murdering babies, no, that's just eh.
@@LyaksandraB ☝️Actually Hilarious, mate 👏
They are also instinctually driven to murder blind and helpless babies while they are blind and helpless babies.
@@Its_Captain_Jack_Sparrow mmmm, sparrows are /not/ parasitic birds. Cuckoos and cowbirds on the other hand...
"OUR TURF"
I love how Jerry started as a one-off bit, but had practically become a full character
I love Jerry!!! I don't know who he is but he's freakin great.
reminds me of the Randy character from bojack horseman lol
The lore of the Zefrankverse expands...
Thank you.
Honestly it's one of the best things about this series. Just makes it so much better
I have NEVER, heard the expression "A Fart in a Hurricane" before! I almost died laughing!
Tbh, I think 6:17 is actually the hatchling accidentally jumping out itself; they're known for bracing against other hatchlings while shoving to push them out of the nest. I think it thought the mother bird was a hatching...
Whenever someone says, "People should be more like animals.", after watching a cute animal video, I'm going to send them the link for _this_ video.
Send them a link to the duck video while you're at it.
@@albertskoften1452 hell, just send them a link to zefranks channel!
Ironically some animals act like people and not only some primates either.
@@JamesDavy2009 Humans, for instance, are animals that act quite a bit like people.
During lockdown, a family of dark-eyed juncos built a nest in my flowerbox. Every day I would take pictures of the eggs, and then the new hatchlings, once they'd hatched. After about a week, I noticed something odd: one of the babies was much bigger than the others, which seemed like they'd stopped moving. Later the next day, I came back and the larger one had stopped moving, too. It turns out that one of the eggs was actually a brown-headed cowbird's, and it had killed the junco babies. The parents abandoned the nest, and the cowbird was either killed or starved to death. I was absolutely devastated, but it was an absolutely fascinating thing to see first hand in real-time.
Aw nature
Why didn’t you feed the baby
@@bari2883 Because it... it's a parasite that kills baby birds. And also, you're not supposed to feed wild animals.
@@bari2883 It was already dead by the time I checked in the next day, since I wasn't entirely sure of what I was seeing until I got a closer look at the nest in the morning (after the cowbird chick had passed away). I'm not sure how often cowbird chicks have to be fed, but it likely died from an attack by one of the parents, or from exposure, rather than starvation. Either way, there really wasn't anything I could do, as sad as that is
@@bari2883 I mean it’s not really his responsibility even the birds left good riddance
I love how he says “Byrd”
I vant my Boyrd
I talk to my friend who actually knows about these birds. Yeah these birds there are the reasons why some bird species have been wiped out to extinction pretty sad but also yet insane.
Very sad
Its sad, but how nature be sometimes. At least it wasn’t from human meddling.
@@sayosweeti5757 that's true, thank you.
@@sayosweeti5757 at least? It is less bad if some species does it? Speciesism much?
I remember one documentary where cuckoo bebes were laid in the same nest by two different cukoo mamas, and so they wound up in an akward backwards sumo match, trying to push each other out.
That would make for some hilarious voiceover commentary if it wasn't so sad to begin with...
I will pay to watch that.
There have been pretty dark True Facts before, but this is probably the darkest it's ever been. And yet, so fascinating. Dayum, nature; you scary.
I have to agree. Nature is so fucked up
@im calling saul ironic, this video is about parasites, and here you are being one yourself
Seriously, birds that egg dump is the scariest shit you've ever seen?!?!??!?! You clearly live under a rock, SMN.
LMAO, Sc~a~a~a~rry, inDEED!
Beep-heads!!!
I've heard that if a yellow warbler see's that a cow bird laid an egg in their nest they sometimes will abandon their eggs but build on top of the old nest and start over with a new clutch of eggs.
Damn mama bird, at that point just pull out the crow egg.
I mean, if I was in the bird Mafia and a warbler killed my unborn nephew and then stayed in the same place, I wouldn't let her off the hook just because she built a new nest.
This is true
Build on top of the old nest? Wouldn't that lead to a "Tell Tale Heart" scenario if any of the original eggs (warbler or cowbird) start to hatch?
@@dbseamz The eggs need to be in contact with the female's brood patch or else there won't be enough heat for the embryos to develop.
@@falcoperegrinus82 oh okay
"You're not even born yet you're an acessory to murder."
This quote is fucking insane
You know it's bad when Bird Eggs need to have Captcha
Mama bird is like "no, that isn't a traffic light you faker!"
Here's a fun little fact from wildlife rehab: when we get parasitic bird babies we have to accommodate their natural behavior (within reason for every bird's welfare of course) so we put lone parasite birds in groups with similar age. This means unpleasant teenage cowbirds in otherwise very loveable bird groups, which discourages caretakers from spending longer than they have to with those groups and actually helps keep them from becoming tame/habituated before they're old enough to release. Plus, sometimes you just have a lonely bluejay that's too young to be with its own kind and a parasite bird who needs someone to pester. It's a give and take relationship all around.
That's wild. Looks like nature really loves to make mutually reinforcing systems, I guess. Thanks for sharing!
wow, so they actively discourage the victimization of birds in what *should* be a safe habitat?
@@InfernosReaper a baby cowbird isn't harmful to birds that are more grown and would not be put with other birds if it would cause stress or harm. Exactly, in this setting they actually prevent harmful habituation and provide company to birds that need bird socialization if their own species isn't available.
I love the idea of a cowbird hatchling's obnoxious behavior becoming an asset in rehab - instead of having a detrimental effect on nestmates by training bird parents to ignore them, they have a beneficial effect on nestmates...by training human caretakers to ignore them as much as possible.
@@mightytangelo @Mighty Tangelo yes! They also end up teaching the other birds more "wild" behaviors in the process, in my experience. Neat stuff
I've known about parasitic birds for decades, but some of the stuff in here is still mind-blowing.
Baby birds are things nightmares are made of.
In my yard I saw a tiny momma bird feeding a huge fully feathered baby. I thought it was the mailman's baby but after seeing this video now I know it's one of those dickhead birds
That's nothing. I snuck into the nest of this annoying Blue Jay near the yard and replaced all her brood with hardboiled easter-colored quail eggs.
She's gotta be pretty pissed that 6 months later, they still haven't hatched.
@@WindFireAllThatKindOfThing Pettiness God 😂
@@WindFireAllThatKindOfThing if I may ask, what did the blue jay do to you?
@@daniellewilson8527 it most likely has something to do with his car insurance..
@@WindFireAllThatKindOfThing unfortunately, if you stole those eggs in the US, it's a federal crime under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
I've learned of brood parasitism before, but never seen anything like those spotted beak interiors. Wild!
Those spots are also a tool the parents use to see the babies mouths in the dark, because they reflect light. At least that's the case for finches, which like to have covered nests
@@Lunar_Capital just report their spam and move on. It's a bot. Replying makes some people think _"wait, do I care?"_
Unless _you're_ a bot, and helping them with their botness?
@@taydarsauce5457 the heat signature thing is so cool! I had known about the mouth markings (had finches as a kid) but not that there were mouth markings that showed up in infrared spectrum!
@@Skittenmeow
Oops! Nope, IM A *REAL* BOY! I don’t want *idiots* thinking they do care. My bad I’ll delete the backfire.
Another commenter told a neat story about a parasite bird in a nest they could see outside their window.
I replied with my own story of a nest outside my own window that got emptied prematurely.
While it isn't strictly related to the video topic, I think I did a pretty good job writing it and it ended up pretty long, so I'll put it here:
I LOVE dark-eyed Juncos!
Your story made me sad but also reminded me of a bittersweet story that occurred in the same tree where I saw juncos for the first time.
In the tree outside our kitchen window, two robin parents built a nest, and man did they have a rough start. Unfortunately the branch was too high to see inside of it, so we could only see the parents and the occasional tips of eager open beaks. Because of that I don't know how many behbehs there were, either; probably 3 or 4. My parents and I all loved them, of course. I started calling them the Robinsons.
Then one day we heard a commotion, and ran to the window to see a crow flying off. I had no idea crows attacked the nests of songbirds. I don't remember how, but we must have decided the nest had been emptied pretty quickly because it was only later that day (as opposed to a couple days of bird silence) I went looking at the base of the tree.
And what did I find?
One single "teenage" baby! Roosting, seemingly unharmed.
I called animal control to ask what I should do, but they said there was nothing practical I really could do. Even so, I had always dreamed of caring for a small wild animal and nursing it back to health. So I didn't take her inside or anything, but I kept checking for her outside. I found her tucked in some funny places, peering at me with her beady little eyes.
My mom and I tried giving her water out of a pipette, and she drank it greedily.
I knew picking her up wasn't advisable, but I was worried about her spending the night on a big rock, so I put her in a plant pot I hoped would be less enticing to rats and birds of prey.
And she stayed! All night! I couldn't believe it!
The next day I did much of the same, but the baby seemed to trust me less. I moved her to a place I thought was safe but she hopped right out.
The coolest thing that happened: I was sure she had been abandoned, but when I picked her up I heard a CACOPHONY of bird screeches in the trees above me! I looked directly up and still couldn't see the dang things!
I was startled, I was feeling guilty, but I was also relieved that this little one had not just her parents but a whole village watching over her.
She fluttered away from me -- her wing feathers were far more developed than I thought -- and then, in the early evening, she fluttered out of my yard on to the driveway
I was all "noooo!!!" of course, because that's a wide open area where a flightless bird is a sitting duck (no pun intended). But she kept going, and going, and I probably could have caught up if I ran after her, but i let her go. Then she fluttered out of view across the alley into the neighbor's yard.
I thought I would see more of the fluttering baby robin in the coming days, but I never did.
We confirmed for sure that all her siblings had met an unfortunate end when her parents never returned to the nest. It stayed empty near the bird feeders for the next 2-3 years, a grim reminder of the family that could have been. And then, around last winter, it fully fell apart and fell out of the tree. That's probably the last time I saw an active bird's nest.
This turned into an essay. Sorry about that.
This is even longer than I thought damn
I love your passion
I enjoyed this! I’m sorry I was the only one who replied, 9 months later at that. But you are talented at writing and keeping your story concise and engaging. You are a smart human, thank you for the bleak “war zone” feeling I got when you described the nest falling into disrepair, it reminded me of an abandoned city where you see homes of family’s long gone. A haunting thought.
And I meant replied on your OG comment
Never have I ever come across a channel that talks this interestingly and informatively about Biology. I am really happy that I stumbled upon this channel. Now I can’t stop watching about birds and animals while having a good laugh 😄 And I don’t intend to stop watching either. 💕
Zefrank feeding me knowledge like I am a parasitic baby bird in his nest
As another species of parasitic baby bird, prepare yourself: I am pushing you out of the nest
Underrated comment!
Underrated comment
Thinking about this again thanks to the most recent comment about this being an underrated comment, I have come to realize that we are all - collectively - the parasitic baby bird in Zefrank's nest, which is why we are _so much more gigantic_ than he is, expanding all the while, becoming...like unto a universe of our own, being fed by the Zefrank's Earth's tiny, signal-squawking speck!
It's just logical when you think about it. Sciencey, too❣
Fun fact: In the field of computer science, there is an algorithm for hash tables based on the Cuckoo bird called Cuckoo hashing. Hash tables are data structures in which a hashing algorithm is used to deterministically calculate the position for a piece of information to be inserted into the table. A common concern when implementing hash tables is how to account for when 2 pieces of data are hashed to the same place, resulting in a "collision". Cuckoo hashing resolves this by using two tables so when a collision occurs, the old value is pushed out of its place and hashed again for the second table. When I had learned about this in college, I didn't know much about the cuckoo birds so I'm glad I know more about its origin now.
This post is one of the more evocative ones I’ve read. A link between ecology and computer science!? Bravo!
Bro, I'm an ecologist and I had no idea about this. Thank you so much.
One day this is going to be a hectic quiz question in our department, and I'm going to send you a reaction of the audience when the answer is revealed.
It'll be wholesome AF.
Good luck with everything in life bro, sending you good vibes from India 🤙
So does this mean essentially when there's two points of data within a position, this looks for those specifically and translates it into two separate tables to keep track of it better?
In this instance, may I ask out of curiosity why the newer hash is the one that stays in place versus the older value? My thought process is that you'd want the older value in the beginning table, and the most recent value in the newly created table. I haven't done a crud ton for Computer Science but I love the field. I could just be talking out my ass though/ignorant.
@@bharatahuja2291 you’re on the hook bro. Waiting for the video :))
@@scubaman2546 That's not to mention all the different trees you have in computer science ;) Binary trees, red-black trees, prefix trees, search trees. There's even overlap between ecology, computer science, and linguistics with things like syntax trees!
I just discovered this channel and I'm SO HAPPY I did. These videos are great!
Your narration is hilarious. I was thrown so off guard by the comedy from such a calm voice-over. Really good stuff!
Imagine raising the murderer of your unborn children. That's a horror-thriller movie twist right there.
Check out the movie Vivarium.
@@stephaniel7002 Just looked it up. Yeah, that is creepy.
That's what happened in AVP when the Alien Queen took over a maternity ward.
I'm 100% stealing this for a roleplaying game session. Utterly horrifying.
That's also, in a roundabout way, the plot of The Midwich Cuckoos
Bird imprinting is crazy, I had a Canadian goose imprint on me shortly after hatching and it only saw ME as its mom. All other people were *scary human monsters* it was afraid of.
Mine too but it was a duck with a bum leg. Her name is Molly BTW 😀
Omg. I thought I knew a lot about animal species but this had me shook. Great and informative episode.
I didn’t know what to think watching these at first, but the content really has grown on me. Hilarious content.
Just when I thought all hope was lost, Ze comes through with a new one. Life is GOOOD, again. Thank you, Ze.
Am I the only person reporting the spammers?
@@pseudotasuki nope
@@pseudotasuki Gob Speed Rob Speed. You’re not the only one
Pathetic...
unless ur one of those host birds child then life is very rough
This takes "Fine then. You raise it!" To a whole nother level 😂
"He's your problem now" 🐦😈
I like his delivery when going about this in a completely comedic way while simultaneously being very informative still
“A long time ago there was a beird, probably drunk.” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
One of these days, I gotta meet this "Jerry" fellow. He sounds like a hoot and a half!
Jerry's not actually a person. He's a Honeyguide chick that was laid in the studio and ZeFrank didn't notice.
@@pavarottiaardvark3431 Oh, thanks for clearing that up! It makes so much sense now. 😉
@im calling saul so it's probably bulls**t then
Head canon, it's Jerry from Rick & Morty...
I've never thought my blood would boil on a certain species of bird before.
Were you thinking it should go the way of the rocky mountain locust as well? 😂
You misspelled "byerrd".
@@Hastur876 it's beard
Hey hey hey hey hey guess what?
Coo Coo :)
@@Lunar_Capital u gonna be peck to death lmao
The narration was so funny! However I feel so bad for the non- parasitic Birds. It's so sad.
These videos have the best script, jokes and footage I've ever seen combined. Congrats 👏🏻
*"...Obligate brood parasites or ****heads."*
Laughed harder than I should have.
Hey Ze, I've always wondered - what the heck even is a sea urchin? I feel like you're definitely the only person who could adequately explain the kooky peculiarities of those little salty spiky thingies. Great video as always bud, you are my favorite science teacher!
Sea urchins are punk sea stars
The sea star video mentions sea urchins, no? I guess there is rather more to the sneezing porcupine rocks than just autonomous drones though.
i am not zefrank but:
sea urchins are echinoderms like sea stars (in fact, they really are just sea stars with spines). they have a mouth near the sea floor, and a butt on the top. they move around by feet, or by moving their spines.
there are also irregular sea urchins, which have bilateral symmetry along with the 5-fold (young sea urchins are biliteral, but lose it as they age. irregular urchins do not). sand dollars are an example of irregular urchins.
I think he already made a video on sea urchins, at least briefly mentioned them or maybe was some other channel I saw. I'm not sure. Wanted to help but realize now I didn't help but wish you a good day and hope it's enough :)
@@scotty3739 , Heart urchins look like a cross between a sand dollar and a sea urchin, kind of. When they die and bleach out and lose their hairlike spines, you can see the similarities in the pattern of the top surface. Living sand dollars also have hair-like spines. We used to race them in tide pools. Ze could do a video of all of the different urchins and sand dollars. He has touched on sea stars, but I don’t remember if he’s done basket stars, yet. Those are weird a f.
Wow! This video carried a sense of proper elegance and presentation in the beginning and then BAM!! Hit me with the good stuff! Just subbed.
Some of these birbs need to start an alliance with a cat.
There's a horror movie by the name of "Vivarium" that basically puts this bird's perspective but as in "what if it happened to humans" I recommend to watch it one day. That's how I learned about these birds.
a dark movie
Yoo yeah that movie is awesome, I stumbled upon it by accident with a friend and we were on the edge of our seats for all of it
Isn't that just the European Union?
Yeah, that movie was great. I thought of it too while watching this video.
@@jerubaal101 ???
I intern at a wildlife rehab center. Once a fledgling bird was brought in and the staff were confused what it could be. They said the person who brought it in told them "it was on the ground and house finches were pecking at it, I think they were attacking it!" I recognized the bird as a brown-headed cowbird, and the finches were likely the host parents simply trying to get the fledgling to eat. Brown-headed cowbirds are very common across much of north america as well, as a birder I'm always surprised how little the general public knows about the species that live around them.
I freaking hate cowbirds. Not only are they parasitic, they're almost as bad as the squirrels when it comes to emptying out the bird feeder.
@@pompe221 They can't help how they evolved! It's really quite fascinating. I appreciate any native birds I can get; cowbirds are better than starlings. Plus they're not quite as bad of brood parasites as Eurasian cuckoos, the young don't push other eggs and young out of the nest, only outcompete them, so it's not unusual for a cowbird to fledge with some of the native bird's own young.
They are not a highly destructive parasite though, just an intermediate one. Humans have given them extra habitat, but that is our fault. They are highly intelligent, they can't help how they are born or that they aren't as pretty.
@@pompe221 Off topic but slightly related, but you have to keep in mind that squirrels aren't being malicious when they empty out bird feeders, they're just trying to survive like everyone else. What worked for me is setting up a separate squirrel feeder. On one end of my yard, I hang up an old empty plastic hanging planter filled with unsalted, roasted in-shell peanuts. I keep the bird feeder on the opposite end of my yard. The squirrels have zero interest in the bird feeder. As a bonus, bluejays love roasted in-shell peanuts as well. See if there's a grocery store in your area that sells roasted, unsalted in-shell peanuts in bulk at a reasonable price. A grocery store near me sells 5 pound bags of unsalted in-shell "Hampton Farms" brand peanuts for only $7.
@@darcieclements4880 "I'm not bad, I hatched this way." -Bebby of a brood parasite
I haven't seen your videos in 9 years. I remember you and your so funny! I love your videos. Glad your still around doing videos!
YOURE BACK! Welcome back ^_^ Its been so damn long and im so happy youre back!
It's crazy what evolution has produced. From carnivorous plants to the arms race between birds and parasitic birds, to the bugs that disguise themselves as bird shit...
Animals that lure their prey like the spider tailed snake. The stuff of nightmares. That would be a good topic to cover.
Life uh... finds a way
"bugs that disguise themselves as bird shit" I want to see THAT episode! 🤣🤣
Or the butts of other insects. It seems evolution has a butt/poop fetish, lol.
One of the most fascinating animals in my opinion have to be wasps. It was long thought that beetles we're the largest animal group on the planet but there are more and more researchers each day who believe that there might be a parasitoid wasp for every beetle, butterfly, moth and a whole lot of other insects on this planet. All of these wasps evolved in such wildly different ways as well. There are those who make holes which they fill with their own young and paralized caterpillars or spiders. There are also a bunch of wasps that are highly sensitive to movement and use this to detect insects hiding in wood so they can drill inside this wood to inject said insects with venom and eggs. Even wilder is dinocampus coccinelidae that forces ladybugs to guard their young as they are eating it's insides. Not to mention hyperparasitoid wasps that parasitise on other parasitoid wasps.
Wasps are extremely wild when it comes to evolution.
It took some heavy lobbying with the spouse and I've successfully gotten executive permission to put all Zefrank videos in the same category as other documentaries. Interestingly, my children like Zefrank's amazing work waaaaaaay more than any other documentaries. I'm watching this one with them now. Please keep spreading the knowledge!
The thought of lobbying with the spouse itself makes me chuckle. XD
It's because Zefrank tells so many awesome facts but does it in a funny and engaging way so it doesn't feel like learning even though people probably retain way more information than a normal documentary since they're more entertained.
You let your kids watch videos with references to things like glory holes?? Smh
@@deprofundis3293 parents sometimes call teens regardless of age kids, and a refrence like this will very likely go over a young child'd head. While I can agree the refrence is inappropriate (and not subtle at all), it's not like actual porn was shown or described in great detail. I'm sure baby bird murder is far more likely to upset/disturb a kid than a weird term they've never heard before.
Good work.. Lol
By far the best channel on TH-cam. It’s like a special egg drops into my notifications each time there’s a new vid released!!!!!! Entertaining AF….😂
This is way more horrifying that what I have already learnt about the pirate bird. Their adaptability is incredible.
I took an Ethology class and as someone who really loves birds, I was pretty horified to learn about all the things they do to one another. The mafia hypothesis is probably one of the most brutal aspects of brood parasitism!
You were not raised to know about the brutality of nature? Kids really have to be taught better in school about how animals in the wild really have to struggle to survive.
@@canadianreserve I'm not sure how the parents raised them has anything to do with the fact the U.S. system doesn't have an available ethology class until college. Unless you mean the public school system should be raising kids which is a whole can of worms, where do we stop? "You were not raised to know how to invest? You were not raised to understand a logical fallacy? You were not raised to understand how electromagnetism works? How dare your parents..."
@@canadianreserve Everyone has different levels of education, you can't base off one person's experience when this person is not a child anymore. I've moved around a lot but learned the cruelty of nature from a young age because of the internet. Learning is treated as a task/chore that you have to do yourself by society, school's main purpose is to teach you how to learn and sometimes the school a child goes to doesn't do that well. This isn't a worldwide thing nor did people "back in the day" have a better understanding of niche topics like ethology. You don't seem to understand that the cruelty isn't expected from a bird because birds are very common and often are seen as dumb and harmless [except for geese and swans].
@@canadianreserve wtf
I love birds as well, but yeah, they can be pretty vicious. Aside from the capybara that's just chill with everyone and everything, I think all species have a dark side to them. The fight for survival is just that brutal.
As a kid, my dad slipped a a couple golf balls in the nests of the Ducks and Geese that were owned
to make them keep laying eggs so we could have FREE EGGS for breakfast.
It worked on the Ducks, but the Geese eventually kicked the golf balls out when they obviously didn't hatch.
It's also a good way to teach new hens where to lay !
How does the golf ball make them keep laying eggs? They see they still have an egg in their nest when all the other eggs have hatched so instead of getting rid of the fluke egg that’s just taking up space, they make more eggs?
@@rachelcookie321 it doesnt make them lay MORE eggs but it keeps them from pecking at their eggs and teaches them to lay in a certain spot too (some chickens will try to hide their eggs especially if you have free range chickens sometimes they will try to lay them outside) having the golfball in a nest box makes them think its an egg already there and chickens will usually all lay their eggs in one spot so the next chicken will go there to lay. also some chickens will peck at eggs and eat them so the golfball teaches them not to peck their egg since its too hard and just bangs off their beak unexpectedly lol. then they learn not to try pecking at it or anything that looks like it (actual eggs)
we had chickens that would constantly eat their own eggs (peck them open and eat them) and the golfball trick worked great.
Reminds me of that picture book where the two birds raise a crocodile in their nest
Thank you! That is the most hilarious thing I have seen on here in awhile!
This channel is so silly but often you learn more here than you would in an animal documentary. Keep up the great content per usual!
It's the silliness that makes the learning part stick more than what a monotonous droning voice tries to teach you.
its far easier to learn something if you have fun doing it. if a teacher cracks jokes that make you laugh while teaching a subject you are more likely to remember it over a teacher just talking about the subject matter. so you will learn more from a good humored teacher than you will from a boring teacher just doing their job
I learned about parasite birds when I was a young kid. I think I stared at my ceiling all night holding back tears.
First video I saw and subscribed. What a way to narrate!
So this is the evolutionary equivalent of the milkman. "Hmmm, maybe dad won't notice"
Glad he did a episode about Glory Holes. With some talk of birds.
🤣🤣
Gotta admit ... this one was too brutal to laugh at sometimes. I mean, I knew about brood parasites, but miles of footage of behbehs dying is just ...
Yeah, this was more disturbing than funny to me.
right, this got me sad about the bebehs killing each other and moms killing bebehs and...just...🥺 SAD!!!!
Absolutely interesting and enriching. Funny enough to keep the viewers connected
Im so happy your still making these videos. My favourite was the 3-toed sloth 🦥
Bird instincts are absolutely nuts! There's no thought involved in any of this, just innate knowledge.
It's crazy how some birds like crows and ravens are super smart and great at solving puzzles, learning, and sharing knowledge and then songbirds are just like derpy, sometimes terrifying automatons.
Almost like single celled organisms, if you think about it. Capable of complex, multistep tasks without thinking
"Look at that, she loves her big bebe" lmao 9:15
I love your content and humour XD
Good humor buddy! Love it.
These videos oscillate between absurd humour and hard-core Ecology lessons. We are not far from an entire generation of Ecologists who will marvel at the classroom that is nature thanks to this man.
He is the NSFW version of Sir David Attenborough that we didn't know we wanted, but now that we have him we're never climbing out of this rabbit hole.
When I was in college, we were shown videos from this channel.
@@troin3925 your professor deserves a promotion.
*hidey-hole, ftfy ^^
I like his name for this type of comedy: Nerdcore
i think you mean the glory hole
This channel is one of the few times I find it exciting to learn. A perfect blend of education and humor
and horror
Nature has always been horror have you seen the zombie parasites some insects get infected with
I would like this, but there are already 69 likes
That was deeply fascinating and even terrifying, thank you
Evolution is fascinating. Like how the heck do parasite birds evolve to have the same markings? wild.
3:49 I don’t think you fully realize just how cursed the phrase “ass markers” is.
Yeah, to me an ass marker is when you take a dump and then wipe, and no matter how much you wipe, the TP still comes up brown. It's like an ass marker down there.
@@ChefSalad 🤣
The moral of this story is that when Mama Cuckoo trusts you with her baby, don't try to give it to an adoption center or else she'll return with a gun
Watching this intoxicated makes it the greatest most emotional drama movie there has ever been
The way you talk is very informative and interesting at the same time. Good work sir
"That sure is a nice nest you've got there. And such cute kids, too! Be a shame if something were to... "Happen" to it." -Bird Mafia
Just like Santa, Zfrank delivers each video as a present to us all. And we LOVE IT.
It took me this long to notice: At 9:50 when the cuckoo is destroying the host’s nest, it pulls out a very large chick and throws it over the edge. You can see the host for a couple frames at 9:53 and clearly said chick must be a cuckoo chick because it’s definitely way larger than the host. If so, why did the parasite come back and destroy the nest? Maybe that chick was from another individual parasite but how would the cuckoo know if it was someone else’s chick if the adult likely never even saw its own egg?
maybe the cuckoo adapted to kill all of the chicks in the nest when destroying the nest, because the nest will be abandoned and it's offspring will die anyway, so it is better for it to ensure no host chicks remain by killing everything that moves.