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| Male and female common cuckoo |
A couple of weeks ago I plodded along Stanage Edge from the north. It was a lovely day, calm and peaceful with hardly a breath of wind.
At High Neb, I looked down upon the small moorland plantation at Dennis Knoll and I became as still and quiet as the day itself. That is when I heard the unmistakable sound of a male common cuckoo calling for a mate. He would have flown to us all the way from Africa like countless generations before him.
His repeated cuckooing song rang out like music from distant history, echoing insistently over the heather. I pictured him sitting bright-eyed upon a perch in the little plantation following his instincts without question, patiently calling.
Click on the arrow to hear the sound of the male European cuckoo.
As Wikipedia explains, "The common cuckoo is an obligate brood parasite; it lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. At the appropriate moment, the hen cuckoo flies down to the host's nest, pushes one egg out of the nest, lays an egg and flies off. The whole process takes about 10 seconds. A female may visit up to 50 nests during a breeding season. Common cuckoos first breed at the age of two years."
Linked to this well-known habit there are two other amazing things to note about the cuckoo. It is capable of mimicking the songs of other birds for the purposes of distraction and the female is capable of producing eggs of different sizes, shapes and colours that mimic the host bird's eggs.
Amazing, huh?
When I lived at home, many years ago, our house backed on to a cemetery and as I lived there from 1946 the whole cemetery was overgrown due to the war and perfect for wildlife, (and kids)
ReplyDeleteWe used to hear lots of cuckoo's calling and I have never forgotten the sound. Sadly I haven't hear a cuckoo for years.
I know that they lay in other birds nests but the magpies are as bad for pinching the eggs of the smaller birds and we have magpies in abundance around here.
By the way. Tom is deaf so I actually talk twice as much as other people repeating every sentence, lol
Briony
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Magpies seem very intelligent and streetwise. I often watch them on our lawn. By the way - an overgrown cemetery seems like a spooky playground for children!
DeleteIt didn't seem spooky to us kids, we were used to it being at the back of the houses. I used to go scrumping with my Dad for rabbit food and groundsel etc for his canaries, he had a large bag made out of an old gaberdine mac made by my Mum for this purpose.
DeleteDid you have a dog in those days? Plenty of bones were available right on your doorstep!
DeleteI am very impressed by your impersonation of a male European cuckoo. You could be the next Percy Edwards.
ReplyDeleteI would rather be Percy Edwards than Percy Thrower!
DeleteWhy?
DeleteI have teased Tasker before about his gardening advice. Which Percy would you rather be Graham?
DeleteIn all honesty I'd rather not be a Percy at all. Not that I have anything against Percy as a name. My Godfather was Percival (but universally known as JPD (pronounced 'jeopardy') and I didn't know his name was Percival until I was nearly out of childhood. The answer to your question is Percy Thrower.
DeleteSO amazing. Birds are just the most fascinating creatures from pigeons to chickens to cuckoos to hawks to vultures. ALL of them are truly awesome in their own ways.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea a bird hen could lay different colored eggs. Chickens' eggs are so distinctive to themselves that I can tell you exactly who laid each egg I gather.
As you say - all birds are awesome and worthy of our admiration but some are more awesome than others and I think that cuckoo is one of them.
DeleteYou have taught me something new. I did not know that was how cuckoos laid their eggs. So I guess that means cuckoos are never raised by their actual mother? Thank you for this class in Ornithology!
ReplyDeleteNature has made them evolve this way. I guess it is why the female cuckoo lays so many eggs in a season.
DeleteI once watched a very large bird acting like a hungry youngster while a very small bird fed it. It seemed so odd that I had to find out what was going on.
ReplyDeleteIt was a cuckoo, of course and the burden of care on the much smaller "mother" was huge.
I still can't believe she managed it. You have to admire the cuckoos, too, they are the cleverest of parasites
It was wonderful that you got to see that Kylie - and not - like me - to simply read about it.
DeleteYes, amazing. It's a good thing we don't have very many birds that are parasites. It's very sad to see some little chipping sparrow trying to feed a young cowbird that is twice its size.
ReplyDeleteIt is so strange how evolution led to this form of chick rearing for the cuckoo.
DeleteTrul, a parasitic rather than a mutualistic relationship. Nature seems so randomly difficult sometimes. Bah, humbug! I'm not in a mood for live and let live tonight :)
ReplyDeleteWho rattled your bird cage Jenny?
DeleteAmazing birds.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of my grandson as a few years ago, I think he was around 6, we were in our garden and heard the cuckoo calling. I asked him if he could hear it and proceeded to tell him about how cuckoo's empty the nests of other birds and lay there own eggs there. He looked at me, stunned, with eyes as big as saucers. "Do they do it for a surprise?" He asked.
It still makes me smile.
It would have been a surprise to your husband if one of your children had been of mixed race! "It's a miracle darling!" Thanks for calling by again Christina. So sorry to hear of the tragic and pointless death of Aya Hachem. Things like that are not meant to happen in Blackburn.
DeleteA terrible waste of life. Tragic. My grandparents wouldn't recognise our town.
DeleteThey also make clocks.
ReplyDeleteNo they don't. That's the Swiss. Cultural, or should I say inter-species, appropriation of the cuckoo. Fusion cuisine comes to mind.
DeleteU
I bought two cuckoo clocks in Loreley in Germany.
DeleteDid Cilla Black name Loreley Northsider? Were you stationed there on National Service?
DeleteNight Of The Prog. A Rock festival.
DeleteFor geologists?
DeleteI despise cuckoos for leaving it to others to raise their chicks.
ReplyDeleteIn the motherland there is many a folklore woven around the cuckoo, bearer of luck, bearer of misfortune. The worst, and it creeped me out as a child, that when you hear a cuckoo you count the number of times he cuckoos. That's the number of years you'll still have to live. I never made it past age thirty. Technically I am dead.
U
The cuckoo I heard was cuckooing way past one hundred so I will need to invest in a mobility scooter and hearing aids.
DeleteIt's been a while that I last heard a cuckoo's call; not this spring, as far as I know. We hear pheasants and woodpeckers, magpies and blackbirds, buzzards and the omnipresent crows when out walking in this area.
ReplyDeleteThe call of the cuckoo that day was most beauteous and timeless too.
DeleteWe usually have a cuckoo at the top of the township. I haven't heard it this year. When I had one next to my last house it could be very loud and very irritating at times (ie at 4am). I had no idea about their ability to mimic calls and lay different coloured/sized eggs.
ReplyDeleteWhat a journey for cuckoos who head for The Isle of Lewis! Truly amazing.
DeleteI have just been reminded by a person who lives near where it roosts that I had mentioned to her a while ago that I had heard it this year. Oh dear. And the corncrake is back but I definitely haven't heard that.
DeleteMy parents had a cuckoo clock from Germany and it sounded just like your recording of the cuckoo. I never knew that they sounded like that.
ReplyDelete