A family of specialised nest parasites

A family of specialised nest parasites Most people are familiar with the nest parasitism – or brood parasitism – that is shown by our cuckoos, such as the Jacobin cuckoo and Diederik Cuckoos, where the birds lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species. These other species, the hosts, then feed and rear […]

Swifts and Swallows: Convergent Evolution in Action

Swifts and Swallows: Convergent Evolution in Action I live in the Hoedspruit area of Limpopo province of South Africa, and every summer, our skies are full of agile and fast birds flying around picking insects out of the air. In the dying days of our summer, some such as the barn swallow, muster in large […]

How does the diederik cuckoo ‘know’ what colour egg to lay

How does the diederik cuckoo ‘know’ what colour egg to lay? It is summer now, and the “die die diederik” call of the onomatopoeic diederik cuckoo is heard throughout the bushveld. These birds migrate from equatorial regions of Africa in spring, arriving in South Africa starting in October and peaking when the rains come. Their […]

Diederik cuckoo – observations and photos of mating rituals and nest intrusions

The unmistakeable, loud deed-deed-deed-deed-er-ick call of the diederik cuckoo, Chrysococcyx caprius, is a characteristic of the spring and summer landscape of southern Africa. The species is an intra-African migrant, tending to follow the rains, returning to southern Africa in September-October (mainly October, thought to be timed for the breeding season of its Ploceidae hosts). It […]

Learning about speciation from White-eyes

When I first saw the Orange River White-eye a couple of months ago, it got me thinking about the group, and having seen white-eyes in different parts of the world, I wondered about their evolution. There is something weird about a group with so many different but similar species, and within which strangely different looking […]