11 Jul Step Mother
We are all familiar with the cuckoo, a bird that calls incessantly day and night in the summer . male cuckoos of most species are very noisy in the breeding season. The Cuckoo belongs to the cuckoo family, and it includes many other avians like Common Hawk Cuckoo, Oriental Cuckoo, and Indian Cuckoo to name a few. Even the road runner, Koels and Malkohas belong to this family.
During end of summer this species migrate to india
The unique aspect of the cuckoo is that it is a brood parasite. The brood parasite shoos away nesting birds and then lay their egg in the basket. Many species of birds are subject to this unwanted intrusion and they happen to treat the newbie as their own.
Usually, cuckoos do not harm the host bird’s eggs but some are known to push the host eggs out of the nest. The host mother returns to her nest but is not at all taken aback by the presence of an extra egg. Usually, cuckoos lay only one egg during monsoon.
What is amazing is that the host bird fails to recognize the brood parasite’s eggs although they may be different in color and general appearance. It begins to treat the cuckoo’s egg as its own and incubates it till the hatchling process is over. The chick of cuckoo grows large and shares the maximum feed.
All through the process, the host bird is unable to make out the foreign chick considering it as its own. It treats the cuckoo chick like a dotting mother and accords full care. This continues till the end up to the time when the fully grown hatchling flies off. What surprises me more is that the host mother keeps on feeding the chick when it hops out of the nest. This goes on until the young cuckoo flies off and becomes independent.
Have you ever experienced brood parasitism, or if you do come across such an instance please make
notes so that we too will learn more about these amazing avians.