He Cuckoo bird Is a bird that has a song of its own by which its name is attributed. It is recognized by its cu-cú musical song.
In the process of courtship the male carries edible gifts to the female with the illusion that he accepts them. Are some Ovovyparous animals Special; The females of this species are considered advantageous, because they have the rarity of not elaborating nests but they use the nests of other smaller birds to place their eggs.
For this reason, females of the cuckoo are compared to war captains who used the trenches of their opponents to strengthen their troops.
After the egg is inserted and the pigeon leaves the shell gets rid of its nest brothers, so they are the only ones in the place being fed by their adoptive parents. After a while you can observe a small bird feeding a much larger bird.
The common cuckoo located on the European continent, the Asian and the African is a bird with marked characteristics of immigration. On the other hand, the yellow-billed American cuckoo has nesting typologies, so it is less emigrant than the rest.
Because of its taste for caterpillars, it is very useful in destroying considerable amounts of these insects. Farmers like to count on their presence as a natural exterminator of many of the pests that damage crops.
As for its migratory peculiarities, it is known that it raises its flight from Europe to Africa between the months of August or September, a time for which, due to its recognized parasitic customs, it must already have distributed its offspring in a number of nests of other birds that count With eggs similar to yours.
Characteristics of the cuckoo bird
The size of this bird is about 27 cm. The plumage of the male is ash colored at the top, while in the lower one shows light gray colors with dark stripes. For its part, the plumage of the female has a more reddish color.
Reproduction of the species and incubation
The reproductive system of these birds is very curious. Usually, the female does not squeeze the eggs she puts. The way in which female cuckoos deposit their eggs is to monitor the nests of other birds until they have two or more eggs.
Then they wait for the owners of the nest to leave to extract one of the ones found there and place one of theirs. Even though the cuckoos have a larger size than the acentores, for example, their eggs are of similar sizes.
The time required for the incubation of a cuckoo to be completed is less than that of most small birds chosen as a surrogate family. Therefore, the cuckoo chick breaks its shell much faster.
When leaving the shell, even with no vision and feathers, it pushes the remaining eggs out of the nest, thus obtaining the total privilege of the food, which otherwise would have been destined to the real chicks of the bird, this contributes to the cuckoos Grow fast.
One of the reasons why cuckoos do not hatch their eggs, as pointed out by naturalists, is the posture time that varies between two or three days.
In addition, it takes about 5 days to form in the ovary, which is why if the bird incubates their eggs, the first would be lapses without incubating or would get eggs or chicks with unequal times in the same nest.
Because of the above, the process of laying eggs and incubating them would be for long periods. Taking into account that the female of the cuckoo migrates quickly, the freshly hatched chicks eminently should be fed only by the male.
From this activity, adult cuckoos obtained advantages such as being able to migrate more quickly, while the young could develop more energetically. Birds raised in this way are able to continue with the custom inherited from their mother, to lay eggs in other nests so that the raising of the chicks is successful.
The instinct to nest, lost in the past by the European cuckoo, has been in dispute because of the presence of sufficient evidence of the action of the cuckoo to lay eggs on the bare ground and cuddle them.
Subsequently to that, it also feeds them, so there is a possibility that this instinct is in a process of restoration.
The small size of eggs is known as"egg mimicry"and is an obvious case of natural adaptation.
The non-parasitic American cuckoo, for example, has normal sized eggs. This contributes to the host bird not getting rid of the foreign egg and producing only one egg per nest, takes only 10 seconds to place it.
A remarkable characteristic of the cuckoo chick is given by the natural instinct and the force necessary to expel, after three days since birth, to its nestmates who die from the cold and the hunger.
All this is naturally accommodated in order to provide sufficient food to the large, hungry, newborn chick. In the sixth week, the bird leaves the nest. This is when the peculiar scene of seeing two small birds feeding a large bird, his adoptive son, is presented.
Feeding
The natural behavior of most birds is to raise their heads and open their beaks completely to be fed by their parents. This action is answered by his parents to regurgitate the food inside the open beak of the breeding.
The cuckoo feeds basically on insects, caterpillars, dragonflies and butterflies, although sometimes they can feed on lizards or other birds' eggs, tree frogs are also present in their diet as well as grasshoppers.
According to information collected by Anderson (cp in Suban, K. 2014.) feeding 30 young cuckoos in the vicinity of the River Kern of South Fork reported a consumption of 44.9% of caterpillars, 21.8% of grasshoppers, 23.8% of tree frogs and 1.3% of a variety of butterflies, spiders and dragonflies.
Based on this, it is possible to state that the preferred food of these birds are undoubtedly the caterpillars.
References
- Anonymous. The Cuckoo With Many Nicknames. Extracted on March 30, 2017 from: mrjonathan.com.
- Anonymous. Cuckoo. Extracted on March 30, 2017. From: ecured.cu.
- Curtis, H.; Barnes, N.; Schnek, A. and Flores, G. (2006) Invitation to biology. Pan American Medical Publishing House. Extracted on March 30, 2017 from: books.google.co.ve.
- Darwin, C. (2010). The origin of species. Editorial EDAF Extracted on March 30, 2017 from: books.google.co.ve.
- Garrido, M. (2017). Dictionary of words of andar por casa (Huelva and province). University of Huelva, Publications. Extracted on March 30, 2017 from: books.google.co.ve.
- Suban, K. (2014). Coccyzus americanu. The Online Guide to the Animals of Trinidad and Tobago. Extracted on March 30, 2017 from: sta.uwi.edu.
- Valero, L. and De Eugenio, M. (2003). Symbolism and design of Galaic Gentile heraldry. Luis de Salazar and Castro Institute. Editorial Hidalguía Extracted on March 30, 2017 from: books.google.co.ve.