Printable Cuckoo Mask

5 Interesting Facts About Cuckoos!

• Cuckoos are brood parasites - they lay their eggs in other birds' nests and let the unsuspecting foster parents raise their chick. Each female cuckoo specialises in targeting just one host species.
• A newly hatched cuckoo chick will instinctively shove all the other eggs and chicks out of the nest within hours of hatching - it needs all the food for itself.
• Cuckoo eggs hatch faster than the host's eggs and the chick grows so quickly it soon dwarfs its foster parents - yet they keep feeding it regardless.
• The cuckoo's call is one of the most recognisable in nature and has been used in clocks since the 1730s - hearing the first cuckoo of spring was traditionally considered a sign of good luck.
• Cuckoos migrate to sub-Saharan Africa every winter - a remarkable 10,000km journey for a bird that's often described as lazy when it comes to parenting!