Great Spotted Cuckoo

• GeneralA brood parasite: it lays its eggs in the nests of magpies and azure-winged magpies.
• Unlike the cuckoo, its chick does not push the host's young out of the nest: it lives alongside them, although many young magpies die for lack of food.
• Great spotted cuckoo chicks secrete a foul-smelling substance that repels raptors and cats, so in areas with many predators carrion crow chicks survive better if they share a nest with one.
• The male deliberately provokes the magpie into leaving the nest and chasing the intruder, which is the moment the female uses to lay.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat & environment

Dehesa, olive groves and wooded farmland

Birth weight

Altricial: born blind, naked or with sparse down and entirely dependent

Size at birth

Altricial: born blind, naked or with sparse down and entirely dependent

Sexual maturity

1-2 years

Gestation / incubation

Incubation is done by the host pair. Cuckoo chicks usually hatch a few days before the magpie's own

Litter / clutch size

A female lays an egg every two days in runs of up to six, and over the season a single pair can parasitise as many as 25 magpie nests

Sources consulted: SEO/BirdLife (ficha y III Atlas de las aves en época de reproducción en España); IUCN Red List; Asturnatura; Soler 2012, Enciclopedia Virtual de los Vertebrados Españoles (MNCN-CSIC); Soler et al. 2002, Avian Science 2; Ibáñez-Álamo et al. 2019, PLOS ONE 14

Best time: From February to August in Spain; it arrives very early, as soon as February