Cuckoo

The cuckoo is a very familiar bird around the world because of its characteristic sound, for which it is named. This bird is popular enough that it has had a clock named after it, the cuckoo clock. A small man-made cuckoo pops its head from a door in the clock with a "cuckoo" sound when the clock strikes the hours. In the wild the call of the cuckoo can be heard over great distances.

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Aves

Order: Passeriformes

Family: Cuculidae

Genus: Cuculus

Species: Canorus

Whether one lives in the United States, France, Germany, the Netherlands, or Japan, the cuckoo is a familiar bird to people around the world. This bird is famous for the sound it makes, which has given it its name in many countries. In Germany the bird's name is kuckuk. In France it is called the coucou, and in the Netherlands it is the koekoek. The Japanese name the bird the kak-ko.

The cuckoo's one-foot (30 centimeter) long body has a wingspan of two feet (60 centimeters) and weighs four to five ounces (110 to 140 grams). Both the male and the female have pale plumage with gray stripes on their bellies, and dark gray, brown, or black plumage on their backs. Young cuckoos have white spots on the backs of their necks and usually have reddish-brown plumage.

The cuckoo makes its home in countryside areas, marshes, woodland edges, open farmland, and shrubs around fields. In these places the bird forages in the trees and bushes and on the ground for insects and their larvae to eat. The cuckoo probably does not face much danger from natural predators and is protected by people in most places. Some die each year because of habitat loss and insecticides.

In July, a cuckoo living in Europe flies to Africa for the winter. In April it returns so it can breed between May and July. A cuckoo living in Asia likely has different migratory patterns. The cuckoo lives alone except when it is breeding. The female cuckoo has a habit called parasitic nesting as part of her reproductive cycle. Parasitic nesting means that she does not raise her own chicks but makes other birds incubate and raise them.

After mating, the female does not build her own nest in which to raise her young. Instead, she finds other birds' nests, lays her eggs, and makes birds of other species hatch and raise them for her. She may often choose the same species from year to year, such as a pipit, warbler, or robin. The birds which raise the cuckoo young are called host parents and have eggs similar to the cuckoo's. They also have the same diet as the cuckoo. This insures that the other birds incubate the cuckoo eggs and then feed the cuckoo chick the right caterpillars, grasshoppers, flies, beetles, and snails.

When she lays her egg in the nest of the host, the female cuckoo removes one of the host's eggs to make room for her egg. She lays one of her eggs in each nest she visits. She may have up to 25 eggs but usually has around nine. The large speckled cuckoo egg hatches about two weeks later. The cuckoo chick then removes the other eggs and chicks from the nest so it receives all the food the host parent brings. Quite often the cuckoo chick grows larger than the host parent. After 17 to 19 days the cuckoo fledges, or flies for the first time, and it is independent 50 days after hatching.

The life span of the cuckoo is uncertain.