NeuroTalk Support Groups - The Naughty Pallid Cuckoo and The Crows.

I had to post this as I find it so amazing in a dreadful yet interesting sort of way... :o

It all started about a year or so ago when some neighbours came down the lane looking for their baby crow. :eek: :confused: Apparently it was abandoned and they fed it and it came to know the surrounding houses as it's own.

OK, so normally crows are very annoying creatures with their dirty habits and their constant noise. However, it turns out that there can be different types of crows. Some remain delinquents forever... roaming the trees and beating up other birds and raiding rubbish and even pet food... almost like vermin. Then there are the other crows who spend their lives together separated from the pack as a couple and obviously mate and make more baby crows. Even the delinquent groups of crows sometimes come around and attack the mated crows.

So, this crow I swear is the same baby crow and it has mated and built a nest in the gum tree where it grew up. Over the past couple of weeks there's been much activity and baby bird noises from the nest. So we're all thinking, well it's a pest of a crow but it's amazing and interesting to watch.

Well, what do you know, yesterday there's the baby out on a branch and it's larger than the parents and heck, crows are pretty large.

Weird, we thought, that it's not black. It's HUGE already and it's just hatched. It's crying all day and night for food and the parent crows haven't had a moment of rest because they're trying the shut this "baby" up. :rolleyes:

WELL, turns out it's a Pallid Cuckoo that's been hatched by two crows.

.

Quote:

Breeding
The female cuckoo removes one of the host's eggs and replaces it with one of her own. The cuckoo egg usually closely resembles the host egg, and the unsuspecting host hatches it along with its own. The cuckoo egg usually hatches more quickly and the young cuckoo instinctively forces the other eggs (or chicks) out of the nest. The cuckoo rapidly outgrows its 'foster' parents, who frantically search for sufficient food to satisfy the demanding young bird.

How sad but interesting. :(