What is the cuckoo bird?
He cuckoo bird is a genus of birds (of the Cuculidae family) that have a peculiar song, for which its name is attributed: it is recognized by musical repetition cuckoo. That is why it is also called a cuckoo.
The common cuckoo, located in the European, Asian and African continents, is a bird with marked immigration characteristics. For its part, the American yellow-billed cuckoo has nesting types, which is why it is less emigrant than the rest.
In the courtship process, the male brings edible gifts to the female for her to accept.
The females of this species are considered exploiters, because they do not make nests, but use those of other smaller birds to lay their eggs. For this reason, female cuckoos are compared to war captains who used their opponents’ trenches to strengthen their troops.
After the egg is introduced into the nest and the chick hatches, it gets rid of the other eggs, so they are fed by their foster parents. After a while a small bird may be observed feeding a much larger bird.
Atmosphere
Its natural habitats include coniferous forests, deciduous forests, mixed forests, grasslands, scrublands, and swamps. It can also inhabit urban areas, such as parks and gardens. The cuckoo is a migratory bird, so its habitat can vary depending on the season of the year.
Characteristics of the cuckoo bird
– The size of this bird is approximately 27 cm. The plumage of the male is ash-colored on the upper part, while the lower part shows light gray colors with dark stripes. For its part, the plumage of the female presents a more reddish color.
– Due to its taste for caterpillars, it is very useful when it comes to eliminating considerable amounts of these insects. Farmers like to have its presence because it is a natural exterminator of many of the pests that damage crops.
– Regarding its migratory peculiarities, it is known that it flies from Europe to Africa between the months of August or September, by which time, due to its recognized parasitic habits, it must have already distributed its young in countless nests of other birds that have eggs similar to yours.
cuckoo bird incubation
The reproductive system of these birds is very curious. Usually, the female does not hatch the eggs that she lays. The way in which female cuckoos lay their eggs is to guard the nests of other birds until they have two or more eggs.
Then they wait until the owners of the nest are absent to extract one of those found there and place one of their own. Even though cuckoos are larger than accentors, for example, their eggs are similar in size.
The time required for a cuckoo’s incubation to be complete is less than that of most small birds chosen as surrogate families. Therefore, the cuckoo chick hatches much faster.
Upon hatching, even without vision and feathers, it pushes the remaining eggs out of the nest, thus obtaining the full privilege of food, which otherwise would have been destined for the bird’s actual chicks. This helps cuckoos grow quickly.
One of the reasons why cuckoos do not incubate their eggs, pointed out by naturalists, is the laying time, which varies between two or three days.
In addition, they take about 5 days to form in the ovary, which is why if the bird incubated its eggs, the first ones would not hatch, or eggs or chicks would be obtained with unequal times in the same nest.
Therefore, the process of laying eggs and incubating them would take place for long periods. Since the female cuckoo migrates quickly, newly hatched chicks should be fed only by the male.
From this activity, the adult cuckoos gained advantages, such as being able to migrate more quickly, while the young could develop more energetically. Birds raised in this way are apt to continue with the habit inherited from their mother, laying eggs in other people’s nests so that the chicks are raised successfully.
The nesting instinct, once lost to the European cuckoo, is disputed by the presence of sufficient evidence of the cuckoo’s action of laying eggs on bare ground and hatching them.
Subsequent to that, it also feeds them, so there is a possibility that that instinct is in a process of restoration.
The small size of the eggs is known as «egg mimicry» and is a clear case of natural adaptation.
The non-parasitic American cuckoo, for example, has eggs of normal sizes. This contributes to the fact that the host bird does not get rid of the foreign egg and by producing only one egg per nest, it takes only 10 seconds to lay it.
A notable characteristic of the cuckoo chick is given by the natural instinct and the necessary strength to expel, three days after its birth, its nest mates, who die due to cold and hunger.
All of this naturally accommodates itself in order to provide the large and hungry newborn chick with enough food. In the sixth week, the bird leaves the nest. It is then that the peculiar scene of seeing two small birds feeding a large bird, their adoptive son, occurs.
Feeding
The natural behavior of most birds is to raise their heads and open their beaks fully to be fed by their parents. This action is responded to by its parents by regurgitating food into the young’s open beak.
The cuckoo basically feeds on insects, caterpillars, dragonflies and butterflies, although on some occasions it can feed on lizards or the eggs of other birds. Tree frogs are also present in their diet, as are grasshoppers.
References
Anonymous. The Cuckoo With Many Nicknames. Retrieved from mrjonathan.com.
Coccyzus americanu. The Online Guide to the Animals of Trinidad and Tobago. Taken from sta.uwi.edu.