The Pecking Order

Headline: "Mafia Birds" Make Others Raise Their Young ... Or Else

The study focused on the brown-headed cowbird. Females of the species lay eggs in the nests of other bird species, leaving the strangers to incubate and raise the cowbird chicks—or have their nests attacked.

I guess some stool pigeon must’ve tipped off the National Geographic guys. Once he sings and flaps on the witness stand hopefully he'll be offered some type of protection from those mafia birds or he’ll be flying way down south for the winter.

In some cases, the mafia bird's behavior isn't so different from humans. We just make it more socially acceptable and call it by a different name: day care.

Don't those birds realize if they leave their babies in a stranger's nest to be raised, there is a strong possibility of them picking up bad habitats?

Considering their line of work, I guess the phrase straighten up and fly right means nothing to them anyway.

After I read the article, I wondered what kind of threats those brown-headed thugs would give to anyone who didn’t play their game.

After a tremendous amount of thought - at least 2 seconds - I came up with the following: they could clip your wings, pluck you and your whole family up, dive-bomb your house, rip off your head and shit down your neck, or worst of all, you could wake up next to a horsefly’s head in your bed.

They say they haven't gathered enough evidence supporting the idea. However, I believe, when the shit hits the newspapers with that pigeon's testimony, they will have all they need to change those brown-headed cowbirds to orange-suited jail birds before long.

Maybe the witness protection program could set that pigeon up in a remote forest of California, as long as his new identity isn't on the endangered species list.