Another recent visitor to the yard.
Just like its name suggests, the brown-headed cowbird has a partnership with cattle or, more historically, with bison. When bison herds numbered as much as 70 million in the early 1800s, they supported entire ecosystems on their backs. Billions of insects survived off bison, either by biting them or using their excrement as a source of nutrients. Many birds, including the brown-headed cowbird, ate insects off the bison's backs to obtain nutrients. Cowbirds also feasted on insects that the bison's hooves stirred up from the ground. These hordes of insects and birds followed bison herds, resulting in travelling ecosystems slowly crossing the prairie.
~ Source: Nature Conservancy of Canada
Nice capture. I used to see a few of these around my yard but haven't seen them so much in the last couple of years. Because of their nomadic life, following the bison, they also had a sort of cuckoo like way of raising their young by laying their eggs in other birds nests and leaving them to supplant the nestlings of those birds, and be raised by the other species' parents.
