Cuckoo and Meadow Pipit Holne Moor, Dartmoor 2011

The young cuckoo has many tricks to fool its unwitting foster parents. It has a special call which sounds like a few chicks are in the nest rather than just one. Experiments by Nick Davies of Cambridge University have shown that this makes the host birds bring enough food to the nest for a whole brood of chicks even though there is just one cuckoo chick in it. Also the cuckoo puts its head down low and waves its wings about to make itself look like a brood of chicks. These are fascinating birds to watch