JUVENILE CUCKOO

The first adult Cuckoos may well have left the country by now, heading to Africa for the ‘winter’. In July and August their offspring will be being fed gigantic quantities of insects by their host families of Reed Warblers, Meadow Pipits, Dunnocks and so on. The plump giants in the nest make anomalously high-pitched squeaks to stimulate their foster parents to keep feeding them more and more. Young Cuckoos after fledging can look particularly like Sparrowhawks, being browner and more barred and spotted than their biological parents, and with wings that are initially blunter than adult Cuckoo wings (until the primaries grow fully).