Cuckoo call in Europe indicates arrival of spring. A celebration is held every year in Marsden, England on a day that is called Cuckoo Day. In some areas of England, if one hears a cuckoo call, the first thing in the morning rising from bed, it is a sign of bad luck. In Bangladesh, cuckoos are incarnations of husbands who lost their wife. In India the cuckoo symbolizes ‘vasantham’ the spring season ideal for celebrations of individual achievements. The Indian Koel (cuckoo) is described as “Vasantha Kokila” and the male is the sweetest songbird with its ‘coo-ee-coo-ee‘whistle calls. On the contrary, the Guira cuckoo of Southern South America gives a gurgling ‘water bottle calls’.
Cuckoos are very interesting birds of varying sizes. The Bronze cuckoo is six inches long and weighs 17 grams. It is the smallest among cuckoos. The largest, Channel billed cuckoo is twenty- five inches long weighing 630 grams. Cuckoos are slender bodied long tailed and strong- legged birds Cuckoos are found in both the tropical and temperate regions of the world. Most of them live in forests while some occur in open country.
At least half of the species of cuckoos are brood parasites. That is, they do not build nests of their own. Instead, they lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species. The host bird raises their chicks.
The European cuckoo lays its eggs in the nests of more than 125 different species of birds. The female cuckoo finds an active nest. She waits for the mother bird to fly off.
She then quickly lays her egg in a matter of a few seconds and leave. The egg hatches very soon. The cuckoo nestling will now get under the eggs of the host bird and scoots them over the edge of the nest. It becomes the only occupant of the nest. The host mother bird will accept the nestling as its own chick and will feed tirelessly. The host species may be a much smaller bird such as Dunnock feeding the cuckoo chick twice its size.
Cuckoo chicks grow faster. If the chick has to live with the host species chicks, it will beg for food more effectively and get the major share. It draws better attention from the foster mother and deprives the actual offspring of the nest with proper food or care.
Cuckoos are better adapted as they eat all kinds of food. They are fond of caterpillars that are brightly colored, hairy and distasteful rejected by other birds. They migrate between feeding and breeding grounds and are successful in diverse habitats. Cuckoos like Road- runners, malkohas, couas, coucals build their own nests.
In Russia some believe that the cuckoo can predict how many years a person will live. Upon hearing a cuckoo, a person will ask, “How many more years will I live/”. The number of cuckoo calls given in reply is the number of years the person will live.
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