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It belongs to the group of the most characteristic birds occurring in our country, for two reasons. Firstly, this bird as the only one does not build nests. During the breeding season it only looks for a foster mother for her young. In the absence of the host, it lays an egg in another bird’s nest, and although the egg differs in size and color from other eggs, it is accepted by the owner of the nest, which sits on it while sitting on its own eggs. To make matters even worse, the little, still blind baby cuckoo, which has just hatched, has one main goal to achieve – to throw everything out of the nest, meaning getting rid of the nest’s rightful owners. With a great effort it throws out eggs and baby birds. As the cuckoo is a medium-sized bird (with a weight of about 100 g, and a wingspan of around 60 cm), it sometimes happens that the cuckoo’s foster parents are several times smaller than the foundling, so the act of feeding the constantly hungry “chick” is very exhausting for them. Another characteristic feature of this species is the way it vocalizes. Just like in case of the Eurasian golden oriole’s characteristic „weela-wee-ooo”, the “cuckoo-cuckoo” is hard to be mistaken with any other sound. The “cuckoo-cuckoo” often spreads through the forest and can be heard from afar, even if the cuckoo itself is hard to notice and observe, which is a pity, as the cuckoo is a beautiful, colorful bird which definitely can be liked.
Last minute news – 05/2013
A Radical change has occurred in my gallery. It is still not what I would like to see in this gallery, but new pictures added are surely a higher shelf from a previous gallery. Unfortunately, though this time a cuckoo allowed to take pictures of itself in a bigger close-up, it took a special liking for branches with offsetting sky, so the worst possible option. It was a beautiful morning, warm color of the light and many twigs on which you could take beautiful pictures of a cuckoo. If she knew about that and of my good, safe intentions…Oh, well, there is a progress, but not the default quality. What is relevant is that sitting near my watching spot it cuckooed beautifully, allowing me to record my own track of its voice.
Last minute news - 05/2014
Finally, I succeeded in taking some pictures of the Cuckoo from a short distance. This undoubtedly skittish bird let me photograph itself only from a large distance. That is why the image quality leaves much to be desired. But not this time. The portable, chair shelter was supposed to work for the Little Crake, Spotted Crake, but, owing to it, the pictures of the Cuckoo were taken. Undoubtedly, these are my best photos of this beautiful bird, so the reconsted gallery and the cuckoos go to the news.
Last minute news - 05/2014
At the edge of the forest where the lesser spotted eagle has its habitat, near small water reservoirs there were cuckoos which behaved very actively. They chased each other making a noise like cuckoos do. And because nothing happened for hours, in the feeding ground of the eagle I took dozens of new, more interesting than before images of cuckoos. The gallery was radically rebuilt. Sometimes the bird sat on a tree 2-3 meters over my head and loudly cuckooed. Its strongly and monotonously sounding voice was quite bothersome. In the area there was no other bird of such an active life, as from dawn to dusk, here and there I could hear the cuckoo. Well, it is not so easy to drop off up to 20 eggs. In addition the rivaly of other cuckoos, whose presence was not tolerated, "foreign" cuckoo was immediately chased away. May be cuckoo-mother, however, cared for its offspring and did not want another cuckoo to drop their egg in the nest? Its activity was really impressive and it is difficult to compare it with another bird in the area at that time.
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