25 Amazing and Interesting Facts about Cuckoo | Amazing Facts 4U
- The cuckoo is a bird of the Cuculidae family.
- The scientific name of Cuckoo is Cuculus canorus.
- There are all 54 species of cuckoo that can be found in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.
- Only 2 of 54 cuckoo species live in Europe.
- Cuckoo mostly inhabits open areas, such as marshes, meadows, and fields.
- Cuckoos are birds of medium size. They can reach 12 to 14 inches in length and weigh up to 60 gms.
- You distinguish males and females by the color of their feathers. Upperparts of the males are bluish to gray, and their white bellies are intersected with dark lines. Females have buff-colored breasts with dark lines.
- Cuckoos are named after the sound which they produce: ‘cuck-oo’.
- Amazingly only one cuckoo species called the Common cuckoo is able to produce this sound. Other species communicate by producing different types of sounds.
- In fact, the characteristic ‘cuck-oo’ sound is produced only by males. Females produce a bubbling sound, which resembles the sound of the water that is running out of the tub after removing the plug.
- Cuckoo feeds on insects and its favorite food is a hairy caterpillar.
- Cuckoo travels to Africa each September to avoid cold periods and lack of food during the winter in temperate areas of Europe and Asia.
- Most amazingly although cuckoo spends almost nine months in Africa, it never sings while there.
- Cuckoo does not build its own nests using nests of other birds to lay her own eggs.
- Amazingly more than 120 species of birds can be tricked to raise young cuckoos as their own chicks, but 90% of cuckoo’s eggs are laid in the nests of reed warbler, meadow pipit, and dunnock birds.
- 20% of cuckoo’s eggs will be recognized as foreign eggs and eliminated from the nest by other birds.
- The female cuckoo lays one egg in each nest laying between 12 and 22 eggs per season in different nests. This cunning tactic of being a brood parasite allows for more young cuckoos to be reared by foster parents than would otherwise be possible. Often the cuckoo outgrows foster parent’s size.
- A female cuckoo will generally lay her eggs in a nest belonging to the same species of bird that reared her.
- Female cuckoo closely observes routine and behavior of other birds to make sure that its eggs hatch before other eggs so that the young cuckoos gain an advantage over other chicks for food.
- Young cuckoos do not tolerate other eggs or chicks in their nest. They are very aggressive toward other chicks in the nest and they will often remove them from the nest as soon as they hatch.
- When they are several weeks old, young cuckoos are ready to fly to Africa. Most amazingly juveniles migrate several weeks later than their real parents, yet they can still find their way to the regular wintering area despite never having visited it before.
- One of Cuckoo’s distinguishing behavioral traits is that it prefers to exist in solitude. It will never be spotted in pairs or flying in groups.
- Migrating north from Africa, the first male common cuckoos reach Europe in mid-April.
- The best time to hear a cuckoo is during most evenings between mid-April and June.
- Cuckoos live less than six years in the wild.
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