Meet Diederik Cuckoo, One Of The Most Beautiful Bird In The World

This article is about Diederik cuckoo (Chrysococcyx caprius). I wrote it for two reasons: to talk a bit about beauty of this amazing bird and to illustrate something about these birds biology. They are more than just pretty colours. Diederik cuckoo are inter-African migrants that are coming back to SA around now (October), and their breeding season is about to get started. So it is a good time to learn something about them.

Before laying the egg, the female waits for the potential host to leave the nest and than flies inside, presumably to inspect it. She may throw the existing eggs out the nest, or carry them to a nearby perch and eat them. Afterwards, she lays one egg (occasionally two). Once the egg is laid, the female leaves the host nest, leaving the "foster" parents to hatch and raise her offspring. A female may lay 3-5 eggs in 3-5 nests in a single day and as many as 20 to 24 eggs in as many different nests during the breeding season.