usually, the cuckoo replaces one egg with its own and not simply add one to the nest. there were likely four reddish eggs before the cuckoo paid a visit
Usually Cuckoos eggs mimic a particular bird species in their environment. Seems like this one was a robin mimic. It might've been forced to lay its egg in an ill-suited nest due to a lack of Robins in the area.
Aren't robins particularly good at spotting fakes? Pretty sure there were studies where a nearly identical egg was placed in a nest and the mother found it immediately. Might not have been robins though.
That is, assuming the cuckoo's parents didn't see that. Some brood parasites have been known to come back around to check up on their egg or chick from time to time, and vengefully destroy the host's eggs or kill the host's hatched chicks themselves if they find that their egg was destroyed or the resulting chick has died.
@@GenericDan I understand living in another birds nest that's one thing but to push out her real eggs/birds?! That's completely selfish but I understand nature is nature and there's not really cruel in nature just how they adapted to living.
@@butmunchass Some have developed the ability to create eggs that closely resemble the ones they parasitize in color and spotting, but they'll be bigger. Hard to believe.
@@kathleenevans1201 I'm assuming English your first language, and that's okay. Baby is, by English definition, used to describe the young of any creature, not just humans. Sure, other creatures may have specific names for their babies, but that does not mean the word baby fails to describe their young. It would be like saying the word "moon" cannot describe the moons of Mars, because the moons don't orbit Earth. That's just not how it works. So in short, the word baby is being used correctly, as it means the young of any creature.
All kind of birds are know for having a very good memory, she probably suffered a previous attack for the first time and it will not fall in the same trick again. Birds never forgets anything
Sadly it usually works since most Birds are mind-meltingly stupid. Even when the Cuckoo hatches and grows to be bigger than the Parents, most Birds do not suspect a thing.
It's crazy to think how entire species of bird are parasitic. Imagine a species of human that survived only by sneaking into hospital nurseries and inserting their babies into the nursery, then when the nurse gives the baby to the parents they go "will you look at that, theres an extra one in here!" And because you don't quite know which one its yours, you take both home
It'd be worse, the Cuckoo chicks usually hatch earlier and are generally larger than the host birds. So they will almost always kill off the other chicks by pushing the other eggs out of the nest.
Some birds recognize this some don't. The big problem is the cuckoo shoving the eggs, and chicks out of the nest, sometimes with parent bird watching it happen, being puzzled, doing nothing. The cuckoo causes such a disruption that brooding ceases because 'the thing' never rests. 'The Thing' 😮
And dad. Join the movement to include fathers, as in many breeds, BOTH parents are identical, or close enough to require expert observation. Both brood, feed, and tend nest equally. So let's quit these comments by people who don't know any better and claim mother this and mother that, when half the time it's dad, not mom. Doesn't mean all species, as some deliver to mom. Raptors, totally different, some smaller breeds will have both. One creator in the uk had a male do it all, when the female never returned, and the creator has also gotten others involved in foster parenting, even barn owls! Quite Interesting. So don't be like the uninformed and always go far afield in their ignorance in praising mum for everything good, just short of sainthood, and just enjoy what many have never seen before, that in itself is beyond wonderful.
What's really cool about this bird tendency to try and get away with hiding eggs in other nests to be raised 'for free' is that it's not always this easy to find the odd one out. In some places, there's an evolutionary arms race between the birds hiding eggs and the birds having to detect the eggs that aren't their own. The hiding species of bird might evolve their eggs to mimic those they are trying to blend in with more closely. This can go also for shape and size of the egg as well. Meanwhile, the birds having to counter this become more keen at picking out minute differences between eggs. Clearly in this area there hasn't been as much competition as that.
Bird: “Hmm…I am not a man in the West who raises the children of other men, only to have his house and home taken away from him in the Divorce courts”.
thats a lot of free protein for that bird all things considered Imagine the amount of energy the cuckoo mother put into producing that egg, and then it went pfft
However morally wrong they appear to us humans, cookoos are an insane and marvellous phenomenon to even exist in nature. They play an important role in ecosystems and without their calls the forest wouldn't be the same.
