Crazy for cuckoos

And so the end of another week, and another raft of Poysers have been approved and released back into the wild. We're just going through the last of the titles that we're bringing back to life; these are larger-format titles, which are a bit trickier to produce, so I decided to leave these till last.

Included among these is perhaps my favourite book on the list, Cuckoos, Cowbirds and other Cheats by Nick Davies of the University of Cambridge. Its an amazing read and a great gateway into the world of behavioural ecology.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in avian breeding biology, as brood parasitism is rather more commonplace than you might realise. Wood Ducks, for example, are notorious. However, unlike cuckoos and cowbirds, which attack other species, some female Wood Ducks simply dump their eggs on other unsuspecting mothers, and let them go through the hard labour of chick-rearing.

A female Wood Duck with young - but did she lay the eggs from which they hatched?

I was struck by a passage in Nick's book about how the male Great Spotted Cuckoo lures magpies from their nest by flying past slowly and lazily. The magpies set off in furious pursuit, but while they are distracted the female cuckoo sneaks in to lay her eggs in the nest. I recently had the opportunity to commission artist Jan Wilczur to produce cover art for our forthcoming title, Cuckoos of the World, and was inspired by the tale of the crafty Clamator. So here's a sneak preview of the almost-finished product, which will be gracing the cover of the book when it comes out next summer.

JIM