By Daily Mail Reporter


Open wide... not that wide! The young cuckoo demands more food


It is one of nature's cruellest tricks... a cuckoo manages to lay her eggs in another's nest, fooling them to carry the burden of raising her offspring.

And these incredible images show just how determined the tiny duped birds are as they doggedly try to feed their giant 'baby' bird.

These photos of a reed warbler feeding a baby cuckoo were taken at Slimbridge Wetland Centre in Gloucestershire.

Little and large: The reed warbler offers up small morsels of food for the greedy bird


James Lees, the reserve warden who took the photos, said: 'I felt very excited when I saw it as I had never seen a baby cuckoo and it was amazing to see the two parents flying around desperately trying to provide it with enough food.'

Cuckoos lay their eggs in other birds' nests, fooling them into believing the chick is one of their young.

At the appropriate moment, the hen cuckoo flies down to the Reed Warblers' nest, pushes one reed warbler egg out of the nest, lays an egg and flies off.

The whole process is achieved in only about 10 seconds.

Please mum, I want some more! The reed warbler tirelessly hunts for food for the intruder


And the baby cuckoo clearly takes after their sly mother hatches first and then quickly disposes of any competition by kicking any other eggs out of the nest.

Mr Lees said there was a huge audience as the small birds tried to feed their intruder, who has a seemingly insatiable appetite.

'There was quite a crowd of visitors watching it as it was happening right next to our main playground, Welly Boot Land,' he said.

'A cuckoo is about the size of a dove, so it would weigh about five times more than a reed warbler.

'They also take twice as long to fledge as a warbler, so these poor parents are stuck feeding them for longer.'

Cuckoos are on the decline in the UK so when two pairs of parents arrived at Slimbridge earlier this year, staff were hopeful that they would produce some young.

The common cuckoo is a brood parasite, which lays its eggs in the nests of other bird species, particularly of Dunnocks, Meadow Pipits, and Eurasian Reed Warblers.



source:dailymail

By Daily Mail Reporter


It seems the chances of a warm British summer are doomed if the migratory movements of a cuckoo are anything to go by.

So unimpressed with our mild climate is Clement the cuckoo that he has already flown to Africa, where he spends each winter.

He is one of five cuckoos that scientists are tracking on their southward migration, and the first to have left Europe altogether.

Three of the others are currently in Italy, while the last has remained in East Anglia, where all five were caught and tagged with fingernail-sized tracking devices in May.

The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) is monitoring the birds in order to work out why their population has dramatically fallen over the last few years.

The adventurous Clement left Britain on June 3, a month before ornithologists had thought the cuckoos would begin their migration.

He then surprised researchers by taking a westward route, flying over France before heading west through Spain and then crossing the Mediterranean into Algeria.

Scientists had expected all the cuckoos to travel on an easterly route down the length of Italy.

Clement - named after the BTO's director Andrew Clement - is now thought to be resting in the Atlas mountains before he prepares to cross the Sahara, a journey which undertaken at night to avoid the extreme heat of the desert.

Kasper, Martin and Chris, three other birds tagged as part of the project, took the orthodox route down Italy. Kasper was last monitored near Rome, while Martin and Chris are both thought to be around the River Po in northern Italy.

The fifth cuckoo, Lyster, has stayed in southern Norfolk for the last two months, but is expected to start his migration soon.

Flight paths: The British Trust for Ornithology is monitoring the cuckoos' movements in order to work out why their population has dramatically fallen over the last few years


The researchers hope to explain why cuckoo numbers have plummeted by two-thirds in the last 25 years, leaving as few as 7,000 breeding pairs migrating here from Africa each spring.

Scientists have so far been unable to explain this catastrophic decline in the number of birds whose annual visits are part of our folklore, and there are now real concerns about the cuckoo's future.

Possible explanations include a fall in the population of the caterpillars which provide the cuckoo's diet while in Britain, or the destruction of their African habitats.

However, no-one is currently sure where in Africa British cuckoos spend the winter - or how much they move around when they get there.


The researchers hope to explain why cuckoo numbers have plummeted by two-thirds in the last 25 years, leaving as few as 7,000 breeding pairs migrating here from Africa each spring


The tags fitted to these birds transmit location data for ten hours, before shutting off to recharge their batteries using solar energy for two days. They are expected to continue sending data to scientists for the next three years.

Chris Hewson, research ecologist at the BTO, said: 'People have been putting tags on birds for over 100 years but haven’t got a very good idea of where they go, let alone what they do.

'So all the information we get from this will be very important in understanding what’s going on.'

All of the five cuckoos tagged are male, but if money can be raised for more of the £2,500 tags, female birds could also be tracked in years to come.

The cuckoos' progress can be followed on 'their' blogs on the BTO website.


source:dailymail