Cute (but naughty)

Published on by bushboy

Bird of the Week Invitation: LX

For this weeks Bird of the Week, I want to show you a bit about the Fan-tailed Cuckoo Cacomantis flabelliformis, a bird I have had here once that I am aware

Fan-tailed Cuckoos are found throughout eastern Australia, south-western Western Australia and Tasmania. Birds in Tasmania migrate to the mainland in the non-breeding season.

They live in open woodlands that have good understory. The Fan-tailed Cuckoo enjoys hairy caterpillars in its diet, but will also take a variety of other insects and their larvae.

You want to hear their peeeer?

REF: http://www.graemechapman.com.au/index.php

As with most other species of Australian cuckoos, the Fan-tailed Cuckoo is a brood parasite; laying its eggs in the nests of other species of birds. Host species include flycatchers, fairy-wrens, scrubwrens and thornbills, particularly the Brown Thornbill, Acanthiza pusilla. A single egg is laid in the nest and one of the host’s eggs removed. The young cuckoo generally hatches earlier than the host’s eggs and proceeds to eject the other eggs or hatchlings. The seemingly unaware foster parents then rear the cuckoo chick.

REF: https://www.birdsinbackyards.net/species/Cacomantis-flabelliformis

37 thoughts on “Cute (but naughty)”

  6. All cuckoos that I know have a loud and repetitive call, and this seems to be no exception. I’m told that the young cuckoos are hardwired to respond to it: that’s how they figure out that they are not flycatchers or crows or something like that.

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  9. What an interesting bird. She certainly is cute but oh so naughty. 

    It is difficult for humans to accept the behaviour of cuckoos. Perhaps it’s lesson to us that it’s okay to take care of the abandoned babies of parents who can’t or won’t take care of their own?

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