Cuckoo

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Cuckoo
Channel-billed Cuckoo Sep07 kobble.jpg

Grimacing Cuckoo ( Scythrops novaehollandiae )

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Cuckoo birds (Cuculiformes)
Family : Cuckoos (Cuculidae)
Subfamily : Old World Cuckoos (Cuculinae)
Genre : Scythrops
Type : Cuckoo
Scientific name of the  genus
Scythrops
Latham , 1790
Scientific name of the  species
Scythrops novaehollandiae
Latham , 1790
Cuckoo
Young bird

The channel-billed cuckoo ( Scythrops novaehollandiae ) is an Australasian species from the family of cuckoos in the order of cuckoo birds and is considered the largest species within this order. Like many species in the cuckoo family, the grumpy cuckoo is an obligatory brood parasite that does not raise its young itself. There are three known subspecies.

The IUCN classifies the cuckoo cuckoo as "not endangered" ( least concern ).

features

The grimacing cuckoo is slimmer and a very large cuckoo with a body length between 60 and 70 centimeters. The tail accounts for around 26 centimeters. There is no noticeable sexual dimorphism , but males have a slightly larger beak. On average, their beak length is 8.6 centimeters while females have an average beak length of 7.4 centimeters. The body weight is between 535 and 777 grams.

The face cuckoo has a relatively large head in relation to its height. The large beak, which is reminiscent of the beaks of hornbills, is striking . The tip of the beak is bent downwards like a hook. The beak of the grimacing cuckoo is gray-brown, the feet are light gray. A red bare strip of skin stretches from the red-rimmed crack in the mouth to the eye, where it forms a bare eye ring.

Beard-like feathers are formed on the throat. His feet are short and weak and have four toes, two pointing forward and two pointing back. The head, neck and upper chest are colored light blue-gray or gray. The wings are spotted black on a dark gray to gray-brown background, with the spots on the tips of the arm wings - and ceilings. The wings of the hand are dark brown. The lower chest as well as the belly are slightly dirty white. The flanks have a gray horizontal stripes, which do not reach down far down the body. The under tail-coverts are striped gray, the undersides of the control feathers are black and white spotted or striped. On the back of the tail there is a very wide black cross band, which merges into a white end band at the back. The rest of the tail is dark gray with a slightly bluish tone.

Young birds are clearly more brown in color than the adult birds. Your front body is yellow-brown or light brown instead of light gray. The wings have brown stripes over the arm feathers and are generally darker than those of the adult birds. The wings of the hand have yellowish tips. The end band of the tail is colored dirty whitish brown. Otherwise the plumage resembles that of the adult birds. Over the course of millions of years, body characteristics similar to those of its host birds, including the beak, have developed as an adaptation to its brood parasites.

distribution

The grumpy cuckoo lives in tropical and subtropical forests in the Australis . Its breeding areas are in northern and eastern Australia , New Guinea , the Bismarck Archipelago , the Moluccas , Sulawesi , the eastern Sunda Islands and other islands in the eastern Australasian region. To the south it occurs up to about Canberra . The southern breeding populations move to New Guinea and Indonesia in the climatically unfavorable season . It is an exception in the rest of Australia, on the Samoa Islands , New Caledonia , New Zealand and in western Indonesia.

Way of life

During the breeding season, the cuckoo cuckoo can be observed individually or in pairs. Outside of the breeding season, they often rest in small groups in tall trees. Squads also form during the migration period. In Bensbach in Papua New Guinea, troops of more than 60 grimacing cuckoos are occasionally observed in November. It is believed that they gather there before crossing the Torres Strait , a strait about 185 km wide between the northeast Australian peninsula of Cape York and the south coast of New Guinea . Even when looking for food together, more than 60 grumpy cuckoos have been counted.

Its main activity time is at dawn and dusk, and it occasionally flies at night. In flight he utters quick loud calls. It searches for food in the treetops and feeds on fruits such as figs and insects . It also catches eggs and young of other bird species less often. He is a migratory bird .

Reproduction

Like many cuckoos, the grimace cuckoo is a brood parasite . He prefers to lay his eggs in nests of similar bird species, e.g. As it is parasitic in cracticinae , Würgatzeln , crows and flute birds . The male distracts the host birds while the female lays the egg in the nest. So far it has not been observed that the nestling of the grimacing cuckoo throws eggs or nestlings of the host bird out of the nest as it is observed with other brood parasitic cuckoos. However, there is only a little evidence that young birds of the host bird grow up in addition to the young bird of the grimacing cuckoo. As a rule, nestlings of the host bird have disappeared within a week after the grimacing cuckoo hatched.

It is assumed that the young birds of the grimacing cuckoo grow up faster than the nestlings of their host parents and thus compete more successfully than they for the food that the host birds bring to the nest. Like for example in detail for the crested cuckoos belonging Great Spotted Cuckoo documented that as the channel-billed cuckoo mostly crows and ravens parasitized.

Systematics

There are three known subspecies :

  • S. n. Novaehollandiae - Latham, 1790 - is the nominate form described above . The breeding areas of this subspecies are along the coast of north-east Australia, all year round in the south of New Guinea, wintering areas in the north of New Guinea and the Lesser Sunda Islands
  • S. n. Fordi - Mason, IJ, 1996 - all year round on Sulawesi , Muna and Tukang Besi . The subspecies is larger than the nominate form.
  • S. n. Schoddei - Mason, IJ, 1996 - all year round in New Britain This subspecies is also significantly larger than the nominate form. The beak length averages 8 centimeters, the tail has a length of 27.5 centimeters.

photos

literature

  • NB Davies: Cuckoos, Cowbirds and Other Cheats. T & AD Poyser, London 2000, ISBN 0-85661-135-2 .
  • Colin Harrison & Alan Greensmith: Birds. Ravensburger Buchverlag, Otto Maier GmbH, 1994, ISBN 3-473-46076-1 .
  • Paul A. Johnsgard: The Avian Brood Parasites - Deception at the Nest . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1997, ISBN 0-19-511042-0 .
  • Johannes Erritzoe, Clive F. Mann, Frederik Brammer, Richard A. Fuller: Cuckoos of the World (Helm Identification Guides). Christopher Helm Publishers Ltd, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-7136-6034-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mark Cocker, David Tipling: Birds and People . Jonathan Cape, London 2013, ISBN 978-0-2240-8174-0 . P. 263
  2. ↑ Scythrops novaehollandiae in the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN 2012. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2012. Accessed November 13, 2012th
  3. ↑ a b Erhitzøe, Mann, Brammer, Fuller: Cuckoos of the World. P. 334.
  4. ↑ Johnsgard: The Avian Brood Parasites . P. 268.
  5. ↑ a b c Erhitzøe, Mann, Brammer, Fuller: Cuckoos of the World. P. 335.
  6. ↑ Erhitzøe, Mann, Brammer, Fuller: Cuckoos of the World. P. 336.
  7. ↑ Johnsgard: The Avian Brood Parasites . P. 296.
  8. ↑ Davies: Cuckoos, Cowbirds and Other Cheats. P. 104.

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