BIRDBRAIN!
Tiny dunnock tricked into raising cuckoo chick twice her size
‘Screaming for more and more food’
CHILDREN – they grow up so fast these days. But surely this poor dunnock must have suspected something was amiss when her ‘chick’ ballooned to twice her size within weeks.
In fact, she’s been duped into rearing a juvenile cuckoo.
Standing on the greedy bird’s back as she delivers a tasty morsel, the process of keeping the chick fed is a mammoth task.
The image captures a scene rarely seen by humans, yet it occurs in countless nests after a wily adult cuckoo lays her eggs in another bird’s nest.
The unsuspecting host takes on the role of raising the chick – which shamelessly disposes of other eggs or rival chicks – in one of nature’s most extraordinary and cold-blooded parasitic relationships.
Newly-hatched cuckoos hoodwink their adoptive parents by making a begging call that sounds like an entire brood of host chicks, research has revealed.
This captivating photo was taken at Barling Magna Millennium Wildlife Park by photographer Alan Leeks and won first prize in the Essex Wildlife Photography competition.
‘I got really lucky. It was the noise of the chick that first alerted me, screaming for more and more food,’ he said.
‘It took me days to get the photograph. It looks to anyone who doesn’t know that the bird is leisurely feeding it. It’s nothing like that – the moment that you can see is literally fractions of a second and the rest of the time the smaller bird is looking for food.’
Mr Leeks, 60, who lives with his wife Angela, 59, in nearby Great Wakering, added: ‘I came back every day to try and get the perfect picture. The one that you can see is the only one where you can see the cuckoo’s eyes, which is important for the photo.’
Shortly after the weeks-old cuckoo was caught in the throes of its deception, it will have flown south on its autumn migration to sub-Saharan Africa. Female cuckoos target bird nests where eggs resemble the colour and pattern of their own. More than 100 host species have been recorded including dunnocks, robins and meadow pipits.