About the cuckoo biography

The size of the thrush is slightly larger, but due to long wings and tail it seems a larger bird. Males have a gray color of the top of the body, head and throat, the bottom is whitish, on the chest and abdomen, transverse gray stripes. Females are gray and red morph. The first colors resemble males, differing from them with transverse films on a reddish throat, in the latter, the entire gray color is replaced with brownish-red.

The voice of the cuckoo is familiar to almost everyone. The male’s marriage cries are a characteristic multiple repeated dolling. Sometimes at the end of dolling you can hear the peculiar deaf-shaped laughing scream of “U-hahaha”. The female's voice is a sonorous trill “Kli-Kryki ...”, which can sometimes be heard in the wedding period. The rest of the time, the cuckoo is silent.

There are also in the forest -tundra. There is a fairly ordinary bird in the suburbs. They feed on a variety of insects and their larvae, eat, including “pubescent” caterpillars, which the rest of the birds practically do not use in food, eat berries, eggs of small birds with pleasure. There are instructions for eating chicks and even mice. Cuckoo distant migrants. Wintering are located in Central and South Africa.

They arrive at the propagation sites in late April - early May, when leaves begin to bloom on the trees. The marriage cries of males can be heard almost immediately after arrival. Cuckoo - nesting parasites, do not build their nests. Females lay eggs in the nests of small sparrows. It is known, at least species of birds on which an ordinary cuckoo “parasitizes” in our strip several dozen: nightingales, dungeons, reeds, skates, mints and others.

There are different “races” or morons of cuckoo, specializing in different types - the color of the eggs of each “races” corresponds to the color of the “victims” eggs. The female lays one egg in each nest, pre -flaming up a raising bird. According to various estimates, one female per season can postpone from 3 to Tyuz. Not every time the cuckoo manages to deceive the "adoptive parents", often birds notice a deception, get rid of a bloodstream or throw a nest.

In case of success, incubation lasts days. After hatching, the kukushonok, first of all, gets rid of eggs or chicks of the owners, and becomes a sovereign inhabitant of the nest. The parental instinct is strong, and the bright pharynx of the cuckoo constantly motivates the “victims” to wear him food. The chick grows rapidly and after three weeks leaves the nest.

For another weeks, foster parents feed a well -flying cuckoo. The departure of the winter of adult birds begins already on July, the young leave our strip in late summer, early autumn. Photo by Alexander Kulichenko.