Female Cuckoo - a photo on Flickriver

Female Cuckoo

            Most photographs of Cuckoos are of males which have a solid grey throat but this is a female which has a rufous wash on the throat with cross barring.  In fact lots of field guides don't illustrate the typical female, instead choosing to show the incredibly rare "hepatic" phase (in nearly 50 years of birdwatching I have seen just 3 in Britain), which looks like a female kestrel; rufous all over with black barring.  But this is the common colour phase of female Cuckoo.  Females don't make the "Cuck-oo" call either, but sometimes make a drawn out bubbling call.

Cuckoos are well-known for laying their eggs in other birds' nests.  In Britain the vast majority use just three hosts; Reed Warbler, Dunnock and Meadow Pipit.  They mimic the egg patterns too to reduce the chances of the host noticing.  The reason why the egg mimicry does not get diluted if say a Reed Warbler parasitizing male mates with a Meadow Pipit female, is because the genes for mimicry are on the Y sex chromosome which passes unchanged down the female line.  In humans (and most other creatures) males have the Y sex chromosome but in birds it is females.  Cuckoos also lay the smallest egg compared to their body size, and have an unusually fast developing egg (it hatches after about 12 days compared with Meadow Pipit's 13-14 days).  All of these are adaptations to help Cuckoos succeed in getting other birds to rear their young.

In Shakespeare's time people knew that Cuckoos appeared in other birds' nests but they didn't know how they got there.  They thought that the male Cuckoo mated with a Reed Warbler or Meadow Pipit who then laid a Cuckoo egg.  Shakepeare mentions this in Love's Labours Lost.
The Cuckoo then on every tree.
Mocks married men for thus sings he.
Cuckoo, cuckoo. Oh word of fear.
Unpleasing to the married ear.

At this time, if someone's wife was having an affair, people would mock him by calling Cuckoo, hence the quote from Shakespeare.  A Cuckold is the wronged husband, which is still used today from the mistaken belief that Cuckoos mated with their hosts, so the male host was "cuckolded".
   

Taken on: May 5, 2018

Tags:

Cuculus canorus

Common

female

grey

phase

Peak

District

West

Yorkshire

Tim Melling « less

Sets appears in: • British Birds

Stats: 18,156 views / 19 comments

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