The Common Cuckoo is the original "cuckoo" — the bird behind the cuckoo clock call and the famous habit of laying eggs in other birds' nests. It breeds across Europe and Asia and winters in Africa and southern Asia. It doesn't live in the US; only rare strays turn up, mostly in Alaska.
Appearance
- Appearance
- About 12.5–14 in (32–36 cm) long with a long tail and a wingspan of 22–24 in (55–60 cm). Males are slate gray with finely barred white underparts and yellow eyes and feet. Some females are a rufous (reddish-brown) form, and young birds show a white patch on the nape.
- Voice
- The male gives the familiar two-note "cuck-oo" from an open perch. The female has a quite different loud, bubbling call.
Look-alikes
Oriental CuckooCuculus optatus
Nearly identical in plumage. The surest clue is the song: Oriental Cuckoo gives a low, hollow "po-po, po-po" instead of "cuck-oo." Silent birds are very hard to separate from photos.
Why they get mixed upThe two are almost the same size and color, and both are Asian cuckoos that can turn up in Alaska.
Where it lives
- Range
- Breeds across Europe and Asia, from Ireland and Spain east to Japan, and winters in Africa and southern Asia.
- Seasonal presence
- A long-distance migrant. In Europe it arrives in April and leaves in September. In North America it is only a rare , chiefly in Alaska, with a few records elsewhere, such as Massachusetts in 1981.
Behavior
- Diet
- Mostly insects, especially hairy caterpillars that many other birds avoid. Now and then it eats eggs or nestlings.
Life cycle
- Nest
- Builds no nest. Each female lays single eggs in the nests of other birds and may visit up to 50 nests a season. More than 100 host species are on record, and a female's eggs tend to match the eggs of the host she specializes in.
- Incubation
- Eggs hatch in 11–13 days, usually before the host's own eggs, and the newly hatched chick pushes the host's eggs and young out of the nest.
- Fledging
- Leaves the nest at 17–21 days. Its begging call sounds like a whole brood of host chicks, which keeps the foster parents feeding it.
- Lifespan
- Starts breeding at two years old. The oldest known bird in the UK lived nearly 7 years.
Name and classification
- About the name
- Four subspecies are recognized. Birds from Ireland to Japan and Korea belong to the form (C. c. canorus); others breed in Spain and North Africa (C. c. bangsi), western China and the Himalayan foothills (C. c. bakeri), and Central Asia (C. c. subtelephonus).
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- LCLeast ConcernLow risk of extinction
- Status
- The world population is large but appears to be declining. In England, numbers fell 69% between 1995 and 2015, while in Scotland they rose.
More species to explore
Record what you meet and build your own collection
Your photos are kept with their date and place, and you can fill regional albums one species at a time.