Hawk and Cuckoo
My recent note on the pursuit of the cuckoo by smaller birds has brought the usual explanation: that the adult cuckoo so much resembles the sparrow-hawk that small birds attack it by mistake in natural self-defence. Cuckoo and sparrow-hawk are certainly much alike (in some country districts they are still believed to be one and the same bird), but to my mind this would hardly account for the intensive attacks on the cuckoo at the very period of the year when it so menaces the domestic life of smaller birds. Again, if it is possible for a bird to recognise the sparrow-hawk as an enemy, why should it not also recognise the cuckoo? I find another explanation more possible: that the attack is deliberately drawn by the male cuckoo in order to leave the female an unmolested opportunity of depositing her egg in a selected nest. But even this, it seems to me, is doubtful. The attacks are so swift and short, and the small birds return to their bases so quickly, that it is unlikely that the female cuckoo would have time to complete her task.
Previous page
