Common Cuckoo

• comportamientoTranslocation experiments showed it can find its way home from almost 2,400 km away on its own sense of direction.
• reproducciónIt lays its eggs in other birds' nests, and its chicks usually push the host's own eggs or young out of the nest soon after hatching.
• More than a hundred parasitised species have been documented; on the Iberian Peninsula the most frequent victims are reed warblers and pipits.
• The females fall into lineages called "gentes", each specialised in a host species whose eggs it mimics; the trait appears to be inherited down the maternal line.
• It is one of the few birds able to swallow hairy caterpillars, which almost all insect-eaters refuse.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat & environment

All kinds of woodland environments regardless of the density and maturity of the trees, from holm oak and beech woods to dehesas and riverside groves. It reaches its highest densities in Atlantic formations and is common beside wetlands with marsh vegetation

Gestation / incubation

12 days of incubation, by the host pair. The chick hatches several days before the host's own

Litter / clutch size

Each female produces up to 25 eggs a season, laid one at a time in previously selected nests of other birds

Sources consulted: SEO/BirdLife (ficha y III Atlas de las aves en época de reproducción en España); IUCN Red List; Asturnatura; BirdLife International; Gordo y Pastoriza 2022, III Atlas; Davies, Cuckoo: Cheating by Nature; Canestrari et al. 2014, Science 343

Best time: From April to August in Spain; the male's song is the usual way of detecting it