Moving in

In Europe, there are only two species of brood parasitic birds: the common, cuckoo – which is found throughout the Palearctic and parasitises a great number of different host species – and the great spotted cuckoo, which is found in Southern Europe and Africa. The great spotted cuckoo in Europe is specialised on corvids – magpies and carrion crows. Occasionally, it can lay eggs in nests of jackdaws and choughs. Other hosts, in its African range, are hole-nesting starlings, pied crows and black crows.

Cuckoos have evolved to produce similar eggs to their host species.