The feathered home-wrecker

It took one man years of observation to convince the world about the sinister behaviour of cuckoos. More than a century later, as the bird’s population plummets, his work is still revered, says Jack Watkins

- Jack Watkins

Fool me once: a dunnock feeds its ‘chick’

THE call of the male cuckoo, usually heard in April—but sometimes earlier—is firmly associated with the arrival of the British spring. So much so that, into the middle of the 20th century, The Times published first cuckoo letters from readers, following the birds’ arrival from their African wintering grounds.

The sound may be as close as you get to the bird, as cuckoos are secretive. However, if you do spot one, you may be surprised at its size. In the years before migration was an accepted fact, some thought their absence for most of the year could be explained by an ability to change into a hawk and back again. In fact, with their long wings and tail, as well as black barring across the chest, cuckoos can, indeed, look like sparrowhawks.

Although the evocative cu-coo, heard in the distance on a gentle spring day, is one of Nature’s great delights, that’s about as charming as this bird gets. In truth, if the cuckoo were human, it would be considered a rogue, a fraudster and, not to put too fine a point on it, a cheat.

The only British bird not to rear its own young, the common cuckoo makes no nest of its own, instead using other birds to handle incubation and feeding duties. Favoured host species—or dupes—include meadow pipits, robins, dunnocks, reed warblers, pied wagtails and willow warblers. The targeted hen birds proceed to hatch the egg and rear the cuckoo chick, even after the hatchling has ejected all the other, ‘legitimate’ eggs or chicks from the nest, sending them to their deaths.