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Common cuckoo
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===Chicks=== [[File:Cuculus canorus chick1.JPG|thumb |left |A chick of the common cuckoo in the nest of a [[tree pipit]] ]]The naked, [[altricial]] chick hatches after 11–13 days.<ref name="bto"/> It methodically evicts all host progeny from host nests. It is a much larger bird than its hosts, and needs to monopolize the food supplied by the parents. The chick will roll the other eggs out of the nest by pushing them with its back over the edge. If the host's eggs hatch before the cuckoo's, the cuckoo chick will push the other chicks out of the nest in a similar way. At 14 days old, the common cuckoo chick is about three times the size of an adult Eurasian reed warbler. The necessity of eviction behavior is unclear. One hypothesis is that competing with host chicks leads to decreased cuckoo chick weight, which is selective pressure for eviction behavior. An analysis of the amount of food provided to common cuckoo chicks by host parents in the presence and absence of host siblings showed that when competing against host siblings, cuckoo chicks did not receive enough food, showing an inability to compete.<ref name="ccevo20122">{{cite journal |last1=Martín-Gálvez |first1=D. |last2=Soler |first2=M. |last3=Soler |first3=J. J. |last4=Martín-Vivaldi |first4=M. |last5=Palomino |first5=J. J. |year=2005 |title=Food acquisition by common cuckoo chicks in rufous bush robin nests and the advantage of eviction behaviour |journal=[[Animal Behaviour (journal)|Animal Behaviour]] |volume=70 |issue=6 |pages=1313–1321 |doi=10.1016/j.anbehav.2005.03.031 |s2cid=1255850 }}</ref> Selection pressure for eviction behavior may come from cuckoo chicks lacking the correct visual begging signals, hosts distributing food to all nestlings equally, or host recognition of the parasite.<ref name="ccevo20122"/><ref name="ABC"/> Another hypothesis is that decreased cuckoo chick weight is not selective pressure for eviction behavior. An analysis of resources provided to cuckoo chicks in the presence and absence of host siblings also showed that the weights of cuckoos raised with host chicks were much smaller upon fledging than cuckoos raised alone, but within 12 days cuckoos raised with siblings grew faster than cuckoos raised alone and made up for developmental differences, showing a flexibility that would not necessarily select for eviction behavior.<ref name="ccevo20123">{{cite journal |last1=Geltsch |first1=N. |last2=Hauber |first2=M. E. |last3=Anderson |first3=M. G. |last4=Ban |first4=M. |last5=Moskát |first5=C. |year=2012 |title=Competition with a host nestling for parental provisioning imposes recoverable costs on parasitic cuckoo chick's growth |journal=Behavioural Processes |volume=90 |issue=3 |pages=378–383 |doi=10.1016/j.beproc.2012.04.002 |pmid=22521709 |s2cid=5754886 }}</ref> Species whose broods are parasitised by the common cuckoo have evolved to discriminate against cuckoo eggs but not chicks.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Davies |first1=N. B. |last2=de L. Brooke |first2=M. |s2cid=10594670 |year=1989 |title=An experimental study of co-evolution between the Cuckoo, ''Cuculus canorus'', and its hosts. II. Host egg markings, chick discrimination and general discussion |journal=[[Journal of Animal Ecology]] |volume=58 |issue=1 |pages=225–236 |doi=10.2307/4996 |jstor=4996 |bibcode=1989JAnEc..58..225D }}</ref> Experiments have shown that common cuckoo chicks persuade their host parents to feed them by making a rapid [[Begging behavior in animals|begging call]] that sounds "remarkably like a whole brood of host chicks". The researchers suggested that "the cuckoo needs vocal trickery to stimulate adequate care to compensate for the fact that it presents a visual stimulus of just one [[gape]]".<ref name="ABC">{{cite journal |last1=Davies |first1=N. B. |last2=Kilner |first2=R. M. |last3=Noble |first3=D. G. |year=1998 |title=Nestling cuckoos, ''Cuculus canorus'', exploit hosts with begging calls that mimic a brood |journal=[[Proceedings of the Royal Society B]] |volume=265 |issue=1397 |pages=673–678 |doi=10.1098/rspb.1998.0346 |pmc=1689031}}</ref> However, a cuckoo chick needs the amount of food of a whole brood of host nestlings, and it struggles to elicit that much from the host parents with only the vocal stimulus. This may reflect a tradeoff—the cuckoo chick benefits from eviction by receiving all the food provided, but faces a cost in being the only one influencing feeding rate. For this reason, cuckoo chicks exploit host parental care by remaining with the host parent longer than host chicks do, both before and after fledging.<ref name="ABC"/> Common cuckoo chicks fledge about 17–21 days after hatching,<ref name="bto"/> compared to 12–13 days for Eurasian reed warblers.<ref name="btoreewa">{{cite web |last=Robinson |first=R. A. |year=2005 |title=Reed Warbler ''Acrocephalus scirpaceus'' |url=http://blx1.bto.org/birdfacts/results/bob12510.htm |work=BirdFacts: Profiles of Birds Occurring in Britain & Ireland |publisher=[[British Trust for Ornithology]] |access-date=12 August 2011 |id=BTO Research Report 407}}</ref> If the hen cuckoo is out-of-phase with a clutch of Eurasian reed warbler eggs, she will eat them all so that the hosts are forced to start another brood. The common cuckoo's behaviour was firstly observed and described by [[Aristotle]] and the combination of behaviour and anatomical adaptation by [[Edward Jenner]], who was elected as Fellow of the [[Royal Society]] in 1788 for this work rather than for his development of the [[smallpox vaccine]]. It was first documented on film in 1922 by [[Edgar Chance]] and [[Oliver G. Pike]], in their film ''[[The Cuckoo's Secret]]''.<ref name="WildFilmHistory-bio">{{cite web |url=http://www.wildfilmhistory.org/person/184/Oliver+Pike.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080620200433/http://www.wildfilmhistory.org/person/184/Oliver+Pike.html |url-status=usurped |archive-date=June 20, 2008 |title=Oliver Pike |work=WildFilmHistory |access-date=25 September 2010}}</ref> A study in Japan found that young common cuckoos probably acquire species-specific [[Bird louse|feather lice]] from body-to-body contact with other cuckoos between the time of leaving the nest and returning to the breeding area in spring. A total of 21 nestlings were examined shortly before they left their hosts' nests and none carried feather lice. However, young birds returning to Japan for the first time were found just as likely as older individuals to be lousy.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=de L. Brooke |first1=M. |last2=Nakamura |first2=H. |year=1998 |title=The acquisition of host-specific feather lice by common cuckoos (''Cuculus canorus'') |journal=[[Journal of Zoology]] |volume=244 |issue=2 |pages=167–173 |doi=10.1111/j.1469-7998.1998.tb00022.x}}</ref>
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