Common Cuckoo

The Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) (formerly European Cuckoo) is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, Cuculiformes, which includes the roadrunners, the anis and the coucals.

This species is a widespread summer migrant to Europe and Asia, and winters in Africa. It is a brood parasite, which means it lays eggs in the nests of other bird species, particularly of Dunnocks, Meadow Pipits, and Eurasian Reed Warblers.

Read more about Common Cuckoo:  Taxonomy, Lifespan and Demography, Description, Distribution and Habitat, Breeding, In Culture

Famous quotes containing the words common and/or cuckoo:

    How like a prodigal doth nature seem,
    When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!
    Thou teachest me to deem
    More sacredly of every human heart,
    Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam
    Of Heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,
    Did we but pay the love we owe,
    And with a child’s undoubting wisdom look
    On all these living pages of God’s book.
    James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)

    The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long
    That it had its head bit off by its young.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)