On Thursday morning I was awaken at 0540 by the familar screech of the Channel Bill Cuckoo close to my place. Grabbed the 10X50 binoculars and went out to investigate and found a CBC trying to access a gum tree across the road occupied by a Pied Currawong pair. The usual dive bombing by the locals (Magpie, Noisy Miners and Currawongs) was taking place, however the CBC persisted and accessed the Currawong nest. Normally a bird will sit on a nest for days laying eggs, however, this CBC was only on the Currwong nest for around 15-20 minutes before departing.
The question is: Did the female CBC in fact deposit an egg? If yes, how do they lay so quickly and under the stress of the local birds harassing her? Maybe she did not lay an egg but gave up due to the "local attention"? Does any one know if these birds can simply "land, drop and go"? Guess I will have to wait for the coming weeks to see if Mrs Currawong hatches an unwanted surprise!
HI Raven and welcome to the forum. I was thinking exactly the same thing last week when I was watching the Koels do their thing in the Figbird's nest. She was hopping from place to place at the top of the canopy of the tree so I couldn't see if there were any nests there or not. But I was wondering if she can lay several eggs and how long it takes or does she just pick one nest and quickly lay one egg.
If anyone can answer this I'd be interested too.
Cheers
Birdie
Sunshine Coast Queensland
I don't think a bird will lay a single egg for days. It should only take around 24 hours for it to develop inside it. However, cuckoos are adapted to lay and run because they have to.
I think one of the evolutionary advantages of cuckoos is that they can drop the egg as it has been "precooked" inside them, hence why theirs will hatch first, before the bird's in whose nest they laid. In other words, their eggs are more advanced in their development. Also, some recent research has shed some more light on this.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100922102247.htm
Thanks for that link Akos, I read a few of the articles on Cuckoo behaviour, and it was really interesting. totally amazing to think that they have evolved to lay an egg that mimics the host too ... nature is full of mysteries still to be discovered and yet we still want to fly into space LOL
Sunshine Coast Queensland
Thanks Windhover, I read the University of Sheffield piece thanks to your link, I recall a few months back there was a programme from the BBC on our ABC or SBS documenting Cuckoo behaviour etc in the UK.
Quite a number of Common Koels about this year in my area, seem to be more than last year, spotted a male in the pine tree yesterday, beautiful black feathers and those flame red eyes. About four years back I picked up a very sick female Common Koel in my daughters schoolyard, think she had ingested some form of poison as she was having nervous fits the following day, while my daughter was at school I put the bird down, sad.