What to do with a cuckoo egg. Cuckoo chick: description, photo. Why and in what nests does the cuckoo lay its eggs? Not all under one line ...
Scientists have long known about the strange habit of cuckoos to throw their eggs into other people's nests. Moreover, they calculated that more than 150 species of birds are secretly used as nannies by cuckoos. Near Moscow, cuckoos are frequent guests in the nests of wagtails, pipits, and European dawns. Near Petersburg - in nests of redstarts.
A cuckoo egg can be found in the nest of almost any songbird of our avifauna: warblers, wrens, flycatchers, and even in woodpecker hollows and on a swamp hummock among sandpiper eggs.
Cuckoo
Why don't birds throw out an uninvited guest's egg? First, as experiments have shown, many birds know their eggs very poorly. True, some birds still recognize cuckoo eggs and throw them away.
In order to insure against such troubles, the cuckoos have developed an amazing adaptation in the process of evolution: their eggs are similar in size and color to the eggs of those birds in whose nests they throw them.
And in order not to be mistaken and throw an egg into the nest of the right bird, cuckoos specialize in birds of a certain type: there are “wagtail” cuckoos, there are “redstart” cuckoos and others and others ... They from year to year throw their eggs into the nests of the corresponding species: wagtail, redstart. Each cuckoo usually lays eggs of exactly the color in which the eggs of its adoptive parents are painted.
Cuckoos have also developed another amazing adaptation: they lay very small eggs, weighing about three grams. But although the testicle is small, the embryo in it develops very quickly. After 11 days, the chick is born.
During life in a strange nest, the behavior of a chick changes several times. After birth, he behaves calmly for the first time, just like the chicks of other chicks. The cuckoo lies at the bottom of the nest among the eggs of the host species or slowly crawls over them. If his hatching is delayed, and he comes out of the egg later than his half-brothers and sisters, then at first he is neutral towards them.
However, usually within a day after leaving the egg, sometimes even earlier, after 8-10 hours, or a little later, a sharp change occurs in the behavior of the cuckoo. He becomes completely intolerant of everything that is near him. He is seized by an irresistible desire to throw everything that is in it out of the nest.
A small, naked, blind, actually still underdeveloped creature, more like a larva than a bird, with incredible persistence makes stereotypical movements aimed at pushing eggs out of the nest.
The cuckoo begins its work by moving backward, pressing the egg against the wall of the nest, crawling under it and placing it on its wide and flattened back. Then, holding the egg on both sides with long “wings” thrown over its back, it climbs the inner wall of the nest, pressing its back against it.
At the same time, he rises to his feet and, resting his head on the bottom of the nest, raises the back of the body so that the burden is as high as possible on his shoulders. Climbing up the inner wall of the nest, the cuckoo clings to it with all four limbs. At the most critical moment, before the last push, having climbed to the top of the nest, the cuckoo throws off the load and falls to the bottom of the nest.
After resting for 5-10 minutes, he does the same actions with the next egg. And so on until all the chicks or eggs are dealt with. A well-fed cuckoo works very energetically. Sometimes in an hour or two he throws everything that is in it out of the nest.
Apparently, for this reason, one female cuckoo never lays two eggs in the same nest. And if two eggs appear in the nest at the same time, you can be sure that they were laid by two different females living in the neighborhood. From these eggs, both chicks sometimes hatch almost simultaneously, during the day. And in almost all such cases, stubborn combat occurs between the chicks.
In a long and exhausting struggle, they try to throw each other out of the nest. As a result, a chick is left in the nest, usually the first to hatch. The second is thrown out of the nest. However, there are cases when the fight of two cuckoo chicks, which lasted several days, ended in the death of both cuckoos. They exhausted each other so much that they died of exhaustion.
But on the other hand, there are indications in the literature that two cuckoos lived peacefully in one nest.
Grown-up cuckoos and their "adoptive parents"
Inconspicuous cuckoos have long aroused interest, and even bewilderment among people. The fact that these birds have no parental instinct seems strange. Why does the cuckoo throw eggs into other people's nests and does not take care of the further education of offspring?
According to the observations of ornithologists, more than 150 species of birds of the Cuckoo family live in different parts of the planet.
The most common representatives of these birds are:
- California running cuckoo;
- common cuckoo;
- clawed cuckoo (Indian cuckal);
- red-bellied bush cuckoo;
- Asian koel;
- ani cuckoos;
- emerald bronze cuckoo.
The body sizes of these birds are different - from 20 to 70 cm. The average size of most of them is 40 cm, weight - 100-200 g.
It is interesting! The largest cuckoo, also called the giant cuckoo, weighs approximately 900 g.
The cuckoo's beak is of medium size and has smooth edges, slightly curved towards the bottom. The eyes can have different shades: brown, yellow, hazel, brown. Some species wear a crest on their head. The body of the birds is thin, the tail is long. Its length, as a rule, does not exceed the size of the wings. The latter are most often long and sharp, but in some birds they are weak and short.
The cuckoo is a short-legged bird and its limbs are colored red, yellow or orange. The toes are located in pairs 1 and 4 - back, 2 and 3 - forward (although sometimes the last fourth toe also looks forward).
Cuckoos are equipped with hard plumage, there is very little fluff in it. The color can be red, brown, whitish, gray, etc. As a rule, the bird's body is darker on top, and lighter or even white in the abdomen and tail. Often the feathers are not monophonic, but have mottled and even stripes.
Lifestyle, nutrition and behavior
Cuckoos are extremely agile birds that can fly quickly. These birds are migratory and wintering in South Africa. Males arrive first, followed by females 2 weeks later. Interestingly, in the last few hundred kilometers they fly alone. Some of these birds migrate to warmer climes in the middle of summer. Young growth of the first year of life stays at home until about September. They can travel abroad in small groups, but never in a flock.
The cuckoo is a noisy and gluttonous creature. The most inveterate workaholics will envy these birds: they are constantly on the move and sleep very little. Some species of these birds mostly move on the ground than in the air.
By nature, the cuckoo is a loner, all his life preoccupied with the search for food. They come into contact with their own kind only when mating is necessary.
It is interesting! Cuckoo is a master of disguise. It can often be heard in forests and fields by a distinct “coo-coo”, but not everyone manages to track an inconspicuous small bird sitting on tree branches. By the way, having heard such sounds, it is safe to say that the male is singing, the female's voice is more like laughter. The male can continue to call up to 350 times in a row.
Ornithologists have not come to a consensus on the question of why this or that cuckoo lays eggs in other people's bird houses. The most understandable is the version about the impossibility of these birds to feed their offspring on their own. During the season, one female is able to lay up to 15 eggs. But the body of a bird is designed in such a way that it is not able to form several eggs at the same time. If the bird produces them one by one, it simply will not be able to feed the already hatched chicks, since their fragile wings will be responsible for hatching the remaining ones. eggs. Perhaps that is why this species of birds makes life easier for itself by throwing eggs into other people's bird houses.
How does a cuckoo lay eggs in other people's nests?
From the outside, it may seem that the cuckoos randomly choose a place to toss their eggs. In fact, these birds spend most of the spring and part of the summer spying on other birds from afar. This is necessary in order to track the location of the nest and have time to lay an egg. Thus, we can conclude that the cuckoo places future children in reliable bird families. More than 20 species of birds can become potential guardians of cuckoos: larks, wagtails, swifts, sandpipers and others. There is an opinion that cuckoos are more willing to throw eggs into the nests of those varieties of birds among which they themselves grew up.
But potential victims are not so simple. They are not eager to help would-be mothers. Other birds often recognize foreign eggs and throw them out of the nest. To prevent this from happening, the cuckoo embarks on a trick. Most birds can count and remember perfectly how many eggs were left in the nest before they left home. An uninvited guest who has flown into the nest in the absence of the owners throws out or eats one egg and instead lays her own. If the nest is open, the bird simply lays an egg in it, if it is closed, it brings a ready-made egg in its beak and throws it into a new house. She manages to carry out her cunning plan in a matter of seconds.
It is interesting! The color of the shell of cuckoo eggs can be varied - gray, golden, blue, covered with spots or specks. Scientists still cannot explain the mysterious feature of these birds - the ability to lay eggs, outwardly resembling those that were laid in their nest by potential adoptive parents of cuckoos. Therefore, birds do not always distinguish a tossed egg from their own.
The cuckoo hatches 14 days after the start of incubation, and all other birds hatch after 3 or more weeks. A foundling from the first minutes of life requires special attention. These babies have an indefatigable appetite, and the unfortunate parents are exhausted trying to feed the foundling. In the evening, tired birds can even get scolded by an impudent child: pushing them out of the nest with their feet, he squeals piercingly, demanding food that he can eat up to 300 times a day.
Some cuckoos, having thrown an egg, completely forget about it. Others wait patiently for their eggs to hatch and subsequently help foster parents feed the hatched baby.
It is interesting! According to ornithologists, about 10% of bird offspring die due to the fault of small cuckoos - some of them simply throw eggs and other chicks out of the nest. It is believed that the same number of small birds die for other reasons, including diseases, predators, natural phenomena, etc. However, cuckoos also have one significant advantage, thanks to which not entirely noble habits can be forgiven for these insectivorous birds. They easily peck and digest poisonous caterpillars, the protective prickly hairs of which are not perceived by the stomach of other birds. Cuckoos, on the other hand, are able to cleanse their digestive tract of hairballs, simultaneously freeing the forest from pests.
Why do cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other birds? What is the biological mechanism of this phenomenon?
Many are interested in how the cuckoo manages to put its egg in someone else's nest? And why doesn't the owner of the nest see the lining? Evolution is an amazing phenomenon. Leading sometimes to unique results. Cuckoos, as a result of this very evolution, have learned to "fake" eggs. A female that lays an egg in the nest of a wagtail will never lay it in the nest of, say, a turtledove. Another cuckoo lays eggs in the turtledove's nest. Each one has its own "specialization". The bird sits in a large nest and lays it. In the small one, the cuckoo first lays an egg on the ground, and then takes it in its beak and puts it in the nest. But at the same time, in all cases, she always takes and eats one of the eggs of the host bird. Cuckoos lay their eggs exclusively in the nests of insectivorous birds.
A hatched cuckoo grows faster than any other chick. And already on the fourth or fifth day he deals with his half-brothers and sisters in the most cruel way, pushing them out of their native "home". Another mystery of nature. If an ordinary bird incubates eggs for about three weeks, then the cuckoo is born in just 12 days. For 20 days of chick life, he increases his weight by 30 times. It is not difficult to imagine how much food he needs for this and why he immediately cracks down on all competitors.
Nemihin Victor
The child finds out "Why the cuckoo is called a bad mother and so - is it really."
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XVI REGIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE
FOR YOUTH AND SCHOOLCHILDREN “SCIENCE. CREATION. DEVELOPMENT"
Why does the cuckoo lay
eggs in other people's nests?
Nemihin Victor,
4th grade student
MOU "Lyceum of Kozmodemyansk"
Head: Baklanova Vera Evgenievna,
primary school teacher
Novocheboksarsk 2013
Introduction
Main part
Conclusion
Sources of information
Appendix
INTRODUCTION
Once, while with my parents at their summer cottage, which is located near the forest, I heard the repeated sound of “cuckoo”. Mom explained to me that it was a male cuckoo singing. I would like to see this bird. But since the voice was heard from afar, it was not possible to look at the cuckoo.
Returning home in the evening, my mother, father and brother and I decided to learn more about this bird, and I was surprised to find that the cuckoo does not incubate eggs itself, but lays them in other people's nests. Then I wanted to find out the reason for this behavior of the cuckoo.
In order to better understand and protect those who live near us, who live in forests, fields and water bodies, we must know as much as possible about them. In this I see the relevance of their work.
Target project: find out why the cuckoo is called a bad mother and is it really so.
Project objectives:
1. Study the literature on this issue
2. Get advice from experts
- Conduct a survey among your peers and acquaintances
I also posed a problematic question to myself, to which I would like to receive an answer:
1. Is the cuckoo a useful or harmful bird?
My research work is intended for elementary school students in order to become more fully acquainted with familiar, and at the same time unfamiliar birds - cuckoos.
MAIN PART
- THEORETICAL PART
1. GENERAL INFORMATION
common cuckoo- a bird of medium size (body length up to 40 cm, wings - about 22 cm), with a rather long (up to 18 cm) rounded stepped tail and long primary wings. The cuckoo weighs about 100 grams. In color and size, it somewhat resembles a sparrow hawk. In adult males, the back and tail are dark gray, the throat, crop and chest are light gray. The rest of the plumage is white with dark transverse striping. The eyes and rims of the eyelids are yellow. The beak is blackish, slightly curved at the apex. Legs are short and orange. Females, unlike males, are either brownish above, with an buffy coating on the goiter, or the dorsal side of the body and the top of the head are rusty-red with wide black and narrow white transverse stripes. Young birds, regardless of sex, are either grayish or reddish with darker transverse striping throughout the body.
Males and females are approximately the same in size, but in summer they differ in body color. The body length of an adult bird is about 35-40 cm; wingspan - 60 cm, live weight from 100 to 120 grams. Some massiveness is given to the bird by long flight and tail feathers.
Cuckoo - our most mysterious bird. Even specialist ornithologists know less about the cuckoo than about any other bird species, many aspects of its biology have not yet been elucidated. She leads an extremely secretive lifestyle, makes flights at night, and hides in the thickets during the day. The visibility of the voice and the elusiveness of the bird left a seal of mystery on the cuckoo.
Everyone knows cuckoos well. And if someone did not see it with their own eyes, then they heard it when visiting the forest in spring or early summer. It is enough to hear the voice of the cuckoo once to immediately understand why she was given such a name. And so the bird is called not only in Russian. The Germans call this bird "Kukuk". The French are "kuku". In Romania, it is called "cook". In Italy - "doll". In Spanish, her name is "kuko", and in Turkish - "guguk".
Cuckoos fly to us from South Africa. Moreover, males arrive first, and their girlfriends - in two weeks. Females overcome the last hundreds of kilometers one by one. Some of the individuals fly to warmer climes for wintering already at the end of July. Young people of the first year of life enjoy their stay in their homeland until mid-September. Cuckoos fly across half the globe in small groups and never in a flock, like other birds.
The cuckoo feeds mainly on insects and their larvae. She is extremely gluttonous, especially eats various hairy caterpillars, which many insectivorous birds avoid, eats bugs, fillies and bird eggs. In the stomachs of two cuckoos caught in the southwestern foothills of Altai at the end of June, there were three dozen gypsy moth caterpillars, and in the other two - the remains of beetles, beetle larvae, a filly and a rider. Sometimes cuckoos feed on berries. The common cuckoo is a useful bird. She quickly finds places of mass reproduction of insects and contributes to the suppression of a dangerous focus.
2. CUCKOO TYPES
Tree, or real, cuckoos.About 80 species of this family are distributed in the Old World and Australia; only one species lives in the north. They are found wherever forests exist.
Golden cuckoo, or didrik.Her homeland is South and Middle. Africa.
toucan cuckoos, the largest representative of which lives in Australia.
Kukil, Kuzil - a small genus of toucan cuckoos that has been given a name small toucan cuckoos. They live on the islands of South Asia and in Polynesia.
giant cuckoo, she undoubtedly belongs to the cuckoos; but besides insects, which are the exclusive food of our cuckoos, it also feeds on fruits and berries.
Genus jay cuckoosdistributed in Africa.
crested cuckoofound in Arabia and Palestine.
bush cuckoos, very numerous in India and its neighboring islands. In Jamaica, their representative islizard cuckoo.
In Africa, the East Indies and Australia there are a special kind of cuckoo called puppets, or spur cuckoos, since their back fingers are armed with a long and sharp spur; their food is made up of large insects, even lizards and snakes, and in general, almost any living prey.
Widespread species in AfricaSenegalese coucallives exclusively in reed thickets; his food also consists of various insects, mainly ants, with which he sometimes smells disgusting.
pheasant cuckoodistributed mainly in Australia. In its swampy plains, densely overgrown with bushes and reeds, it is not difficult to see this bird running on the ground with extraordinary ease.
Guguka it is painted on the entire upper side of the body in an even dark brown color, on the lower side - in light ash with brown stripes. Her unusually sonorous voice is remarkable, reminiscent of the original throat sounds emitted by monkeys, and often confusing the hunter. Food consists of fruits and berries of every kind, which she gathers early in the morning or in the evening, after sunset; at noon she looks for the most shady trees and rests quietly until the heat of the day subsides.
hallmarks glitter are elongated body, long, awl-shaped beak, small, weak, tender legs, artiodactyl, rarely three-toed, short wings, long, stepped tail; the plumage is soft, loose, magnificent golden color.
At the jacamar the upper side of the body and chest are golden green, while the lower part of the body is rusty red. This bird inhabits the forests of the coastal part of Brazil and is found here quite often.
Sloths - listless and boring creatures belonging exclusively to the equatorial parts of South America.
3. COGNITIVE MATERIAL (interesting information)
All children love to hide. Adults play along with the kids: they cover their faces with their palms and “cuckoo”. For some reason, neither "meow", nor "woof", nor "crow" are used in this game. And, it turns out, for good reason. Almost everyone heard the cuckoo singing, but few people managed to see this bird in wildlife - it is a virtuoso of hide-and-seek.
Since childhood, each of us has been familiar with the call of an inconspicuous gray bird, this sound “dull and simple”, repeating so monotonously and, nevertheless, so attractive. In the spring noise of the forest, in the ringing chorus of small birds, the cuckoo seems to weave its own special musical pattern, a little sad and dreamy. This bird is more often than many others mentioned in folk songs, beliefs and fairy tales, its tune is often used in romances and symphonies by composers of many nations.
“The forest is green all around - young and dewy, and silence in the forest; and in the midst of silence - only the voice of the cuckoo. The vociferous bastard! Respond, will I live to see a new spring?
In the old proverbs of the Russian peasantry, the cuckoo, with its dreary singing, was the embodiment of grief and sadness: “The cuckoo cuckoos - it tells grief”, “Not the cuckoo cuckoo, but the wife is grieving.” This bird is also mentioned in other proverbs, which speaks of its great popularity: “I exchanged a cuckoo for a hawk”, “You can’t hatch chickens on cuckoo eggs”, “The cuckoo does not cuckle on St. Peter’s Day”, and so on.
Almost all nations have many legends associated with the cuckoo. In one of the most common, it is said that a woman ruined her husband, God turned her into a bird as a punishment, which was never destined to have her own family. Since then, the cuckoo has been crying bitterly. Her tears turn into grass, the so-called cuckoo's tears, and her sad voice is heard far around. Compassionate people believed in this legend, called the bird "poor widow", "unfortunate cuckoo". And they didn’t know that they were hearing not a cry, but a spring song, and not a “widow”, but a male. Females make other sounds, sometimes similar to laughter.
Scientists have long been trying to understand and scientifically substantiate the behavior of the cuckoo and refute its status as a "bad mother".
Why do cuckoos toss their babies to other birds?
There are several theories on this.
One of them says that the cuckoo mother, throwing her cubs into other people's nests, thereby saves them from a gluttonous father who can eat fresh eggs and, as they say, not even blink an eye, despite the fact that it is his cubs.
But there is another opinion. A cuckoo, on average, can lay 10 to 25 eggs during the "baby-bearing" period. And if the cuckoo tried to raise such a number of chicks, then it is unlikely that she succeeded. And apparently this is the main reason.
How do cuckoos toss their young to other birds?
The cuckoo does this in a smart way - she chooses a nest site next to another nest that she thinks is suitable for raising her cub. And only after the choice, she begins to incubate eggs. If successful, the bird incubates the egg in someone else's nest while the parents are looking for food for their cubs, and if not, then she drags the egg later right in the beak.
There is another opinion regarding the way the cuckoo lays eggs in other people's nests. It is believed that the bird is not cautious, but, on the contrary, acts very brazenly. Outwardly - both in contour and in color - it looks like a hawk. Flying low over the nest, the “hawk” cuckoo frightens the birds, forcing them to hide in bushes or foliage, while she herself lays an egg at this time. They also say that the male helps the female in laying eggs - he scares or distracts the owners of the nest. Cuckoos mostly lay their eggs in the nests of small birds. But some species throw them into the nests of crows, jackdaws and other fairly large birds. But in any case, each cuckoo specializes in certain birds - robins or redstarts, warblers or flycatchers. And cuckoo eggs are similar in shape and color to the eggs of these birds. As for the size of the eggs - and here is another phenomenon. The cuckoo weighs 100-120 grams, and her egg should weigh 15 grams. And she lays eggs weighing 3 grams, such as those of a bird weighing 10-12 grams.
Once in England, an exhibition of cuckoo eggs collected in 76 nests was organized different types birds. Presented were 919 eggs of various colors, colors and sizes. But not all eggs were presented. Cuckoos are known to lay their eggs in the nests of at least 150 bird species.
Having thrown eggs into several nests, one in each, the cuckoo calmly sets off for wintering in South Africa.
And tragedy is played out in the nests. The cuckoo hatches from the egg a day or two earlier than its stepbrothers and sisters. This time is enough for him to get comfortable in the nest. He is still blind (the eyes of the cuckoo open on the fifth day), still naked, but already strong enough - he weighs three grams, and can lift twice as much. But he already has an instinct to throw away: he throws out any object that he touches with his bare back. Such items are primarily the eggs or chicks of the nest owners. Throwing them on its back and helping itself with its bare wings, the cuckoo chick in a short time “clears” the nest for itself. The cuckoo is in a hurry - the ejection instinct acts for three or four days, then subsides. If he does not have time to throw out his competitors during this time, the chicks will remain in the nest. But still they are doomed: the cuckoo will intercept all the food that the "foster parents" will bring.
And the "adoptive parents" do not seem to notice the changes that are taking place in their nest. They feed a single chick with amazing zeal, although they could have long understood that in front of them is not their chick at all. The real reason such "devotion" became known relatively recently. It turns out that the cuckoo's bright red throat and yellow mouth are a signal, and a very powerful one, forcing not only "foster parents" to feed it, but also "foreign" birds that are nearby, give the cuckoo food caught for their own chicks.
At the same time, no one notices or takes into account the colossal size of the chick. Feeding birds sometimes sit on the back or on the head of their fosterling, thrusting their heads entirely into his wide-open mouth.
5. BENEFITS OR HARMS
It may seem that cuckoos are very harmful birds, destroying the chicks of many useful birds. But it's too early to draw a conclusion. Let's look at it from a different point of view.
First, let's not blame the cuckoo for being a bad mother. There are different opinions regarding what causes cuckoos to throw eggs into other people's nests. But one thing is certain: this behavior of the cuckoo is explained not by the lack of maternal feelings, but, on the contrary, by concern for the preservation of its offspring. The cuckoo cannot save its life without throwing competitors out of the nest, as it is very voracious.
And this insatiability of the bird redeems its guilt for the death of the chicks of other birds. An adult cuckoo can eat up to 100 caterpillars in an hour, and it can “work” with such intensity for several hours in a row.
One cuckoo destroys significantly more harmful insects (and more dangerous insects) than all the birds killed by the cuckoo would destroy.
II. PRACTICAL PART
I conducted a sociological survey among my classmates, acquaintances and relatives. A total of 30 people took part. The following questions were asked:
2. Does the cuckoo do harm or benefit in nature?
Poll results
To the first question, the majority (10 people) answered that the cuckoo is too lazy to hatch eggs. In second place (7 people) was the answer that cuckoos do not build their nests. A lot of people just don't know why this is happening. Someone believes that the cuckoo will not be able to have a large number of chicks because of the voracity of the cuckoo.There were also such answers: saves the eggs from the male, who can eat them; that the diet of adults and chicks is somewhat different (chicks do not eat large hairy caterpillars); one person replied that it was a mystery of nature.
For the second question, 23 people answered that the cuckoo is useful, and 7 people said that the cuckoo is a harmful bird.
Based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that we do not know enough about this bird.
CONCLUSION
The relevance of my work was that we know very little about the world around us. The cuckoo is such a secretive bird that, apart from its singing (crowing), we know practically nothing about it. In the course of studying the issue of cuckoos, I learned a lot of new and useful things for myself. This is a very smart bird, she saves the forest from pests, and maybe you should not call her a “bad mother”, as she is simply forced to do just that, and no other way. By laying her eggs in other people's nests, she tries to preserve the life of her chicks in nature as much as possible, albeit at the expense of other birds. Due to its voracity, the cuckoo will not be able to feed all the cuckoos, because during the period of "childbirth" it can lay up to 25 eggs.
http://ru.wikipedia.org/
Akimushkin I.I. The World of Animals (Stories about Birds) / Eureka Series; Artists A. Bloch, B. Zhutovsky - Moscow: Young Guard - 1971, p.384
Animals. Big encyclopedia. Under the general editorship of T.A. Rudenko. Moscow. OLMA Media Group. 2008
APPENDIX
I heard the cuckoo singing
I study literature on the topic Types of cuckoos
common cuckoo
White-browed cuckoo
tree cuckoo
The cuckoo looks like a hawk
cuckoo eggs
Finding information on the Internet
So I did a phone survey.
Why do cuckoos lay their eggs in other people's nests?
Why do cuckoos lay their eggs in other people's nests?
Cuckoo - a harmful bird or a useful one?
This article will talk about one very strange bird, which, with its surprisingly unusual behavior, differs from other birds. This is a cuckoo, known for laying its eggs or throwing them into the nests of other bird species.
You can find out about their features, about which nests the cuckoo lays its eggs in and what its chicks are, what they eat, by reading this article. But first, let's give some general information about them.
Many people know that female cuckoos shift all the worries about their offspring onto other people's shoulders, if I may say so, limiting themselves to searching for ready-made alien nests and throwing their eggs into them.
What is the name of the cuckoo chick? Cuckoo. This is what will be discussed in this article.
General information about the cuckoo
Different types of cuckoos differ in size. In most birds belonging to the cuckoo family, the weight barely reaches 100 grams, and the body length is no more than forty centimeters.
But for all representatives of this family, the presence of a rather long tail, strong paws and a thin body is characteristic. And the plumage, as a rule, does not differ in a particularly bright color. And sexual dimorphism in coloring is either poorly developed or absent altogether.
There are no cuckoos only in the Arctic and Antarctic. But in general, their distribution area is wide throughout the globe, they especially fell in love with warm countries. Some species that live in temperate latitudes are mostly migratory, while the rest are sedentary.
Description
Before we find out what a cuckoo chick is, let's describe its parents.
The size of a cuckoo is slightly Males and most of the females have an ash-gray color of the head and upper body. The underside has a striated color (“hawk” type). There are females that have a rusty-red coloring of the upper side of the body. The tail is quite long - it reaches 15-19 centimeters, and the wings grow up to 20-30 centimeters. In this regard, the cuckoo seems to be a large bird, especially in flight. In fact, it is small, and its weight is only 120 grams (maximum).
More details about what a cuckoo chick is (see photo below) can be found later in the article.
It is believed that cuckoos are medium-sized birds: the smallest species are only slightly larger than a sparrow, and the largest are like crows. They have a hard plumage that fits well to the body. But the fluff is poorly developed.
The elongated leg feathers of these birds form a kind of "trousers". The wings of most representatives of the family are long and sharp (there are only 10 primary primaries, the longest of which is the third).
The stepped long tail has, as a rule, 10 tail feathers. Cuckoos have short four-toed legs.
The young cuckoo (chick) differs from its old relatives in a more brown color of the upper body, as a rule, with rusty-red transverse stripes. The tail of the cuckoo is white-tipped, while the rufous females have a dark stripe along the edge.
The male makes sounds in the form of “cuckoo”, sometimes turning into deaf laughter. For females, the sonorous sound “kli-kli-kli” is characteristic. cuckoo no more than ten times in a row.
About varieties
The number of the entire order of cuckoos is approximately 150 species, united in 39 genera. They are divided into 2 suborders: real cuckoos, containing one family of cuckoos, and turacos, containing one family of turacos (or banana-eaters).
Most of the members of the family are shrubs and trees. Their life passes in the crown of bushes and trees. Among them there are species leading a terrestrial lifestyle. They build their nests on the ground.
Many cuckoos are monogamous. During the breeding season, they form pairs, build nests themselves, incubate eggs and feed their chicks.
Often people ask themselves: "Why does the cuckoo leave her chicks?" It turns out that this is typical only for polygamous cuckoos.
Habitat, lifestyle
This cuckoo nests on lands from England to Japan and Kamchatka, occupying almost the entire Russian territory from west to east. In the north, in the European part of the country, the distribution range of this bird reaches the Arctic Circle and even a little further. As for the southern part, in this region the cuckoos "crossed" the border of the state, reaching Asia Minor and North Africa.
The bird lives both in the tundra and in semi-deserts, having chosen shrubs, forests and mountain dwarfs. It feeds on a variety of insects (helps in killing many hairy caterpillars that other birds do not normally eat). You can find out what the cuckoo chick eats below.
Almost all such members of the family live in the eastern hemisphere, and monogamous live in the western. The former, as you remember, do not form pairs: only one female and several males are found in one area, less often their ratio is reversed.
In the European part of Russia, these birds throw eggs into the nests of several dozen species: to tiny kinglets, wrens, nightingales, swifts, etc. They throw "adoptees" to sparrows.
Peculiarities
Cuckoo eggs vary between species because females are from different hereditary lines. Each of them is associated with a certain type of host bird, so the eggs are laid in the appropriate color. There is another interesting point. A little grown up cuckoo pushes other chicks out of the nest, whose parents continue to feed the foundling.
Depending on the region of habitat and the host birds, cuckoos can be different. In the European part, these are primarily redstarts, wagtails, warblers and shrikes. Their breeding season is from May to July.
Cuckoo chick: photo, description
The embryo, warmed by a diligent mother hen, develops quite quickly. The cuckoo chick emerges from the egg after 12 days, that is, earlier than the chicks of most small birds. In growth, he quickly overtakes the native children of foster parents.
In a strange way, almost immediately after hatching (after 10-12 hours), the cuckoo has some kind of special need to throw out various objects from the nest that touch its back (bare skin has many very sensitive nerve endings). If suddenly a warm egg with an already stirring chick gets on the back of the foundling, the cuckoo, placing it in the sacral recess and holding it with its wings, crawls to the edge of the nest to throw it to the ground. He can do the same with small chicks.
habits
In total, during the first 3-4 days of life, when a similar reflex is manifested in a chick, a cuckoo chick (adopted) throws out only about 10 eggs from the nest, or almost all the chicks of the owners. Usually, parents feed their cubs only in nests, so discarded babies die.
The whole usually remains intact if the cuckoo throws an egg into a nest with an already hatched clutch, because it begins to lag behind them in growth. Then it is very difficult for parents to feed so many mouths.
The cuckoo in the nest is completely silent. A little later, he begins, demanding food, squeaking loudly. And after leaving the nest, he squeaks, torturing his adoptive parents.
The picture looks very strange when, near a large cuckoo with a reddish plumage, already flying, two small birds, such as flycatchers or warblers, constantly fuss. in the photo below you can see what a cuckoo chick looks like, which is fed with all its might by birds of a different species.
The cuckoo opens its mouth so wide that it seems that it can swallow the bird along with the caterpillars. Often there is such a picture: a bird sits on the shoulders of a cuckoo and puts food into his mouth from above, and then again hurries for prey.
Cuckoo food
These birds feed exclusively on animal food. Usually prey is collected from bushes, trees, and a little less often from the ground. It happens that they catch insects on the fly in the air, for which their wide mouth is well adapted.
The basis of food for most cuckoo species is a variety of insects and their larvae. Less often, they eat other invertebrates (for example, spiders).
There are species of cuckoos (mostly tropical) that feed on bird eggs and chicks, amphibians, small mammals and reptiles.
What do cuckoo chicks eat? Growing cuckoos are distinguished by amazing voracity. One case is known when a very young chick of this species, fed in a cage, ate 39 large 18 lizards, 3 butterfly pupae, 5 May beetle larvae, 43 cabbage caterpillars, 4 spiders, 50 flour worms and a large number of “eggs” of ants per day.
The chick is very picky about feeding, so it persistently achieves its goal. It often happens that it is fed not only by "foster" parents, but also by other birds.
The cuckoo has different similar names in other countries: the Bulgarians call it "kukovitsa", in Romania the word "kuk" is common, the Germans called it "kukukom", the Czechs called it "cuka", the French simply call it "kuku", and the Italians - "kukolo". ".
The coloration of the cuckoo is basically the same as that of the sparrow hawk. Perhaps this is not accidental, because thanks to this, the cuckoo can easily drive away the hosts from the nest.
Redstarts and warblers most often become educators of cuckoo cubs.
Conclusion
Despite this feature of the described bird, it is considered useful. The only not very pleasant moment is that, throwing its eggs into other people's nests and causing the death of the owners' chicks in connection with this, the cuckoo causes some harm, destroying insectivorous useful birds.
