Natural History Wanderings

Reed Warbler feeding a Common Cuckoo chick in a nest. Image via Wikipedia

Cuckoos are what is known as brood parasites.  That means they hide their eyes in  the nest of other birds.  If the cuckoos‘s eggs are not discovered by the host bird and rejected, the cuckoo hatchling ejects the host bird’s eggs over the edge of nest.  Some of the host birds are developing better skills at identifying the cuckoo eggs requiring the  cuckoo to become more skilled at “forgery”   To read more about this bird “arms race” read BBC – Earth News – Cuckoo in egg pattern ‘arms race’.



Related Articles

• Mimicry: The nefarious cuckoo (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)