22. Red-chested Cuckoo The name ‘cuckoo’ is onomatopoeic: it imitates the bird’s call. In fact, only one of this bird’s many cousins make that classic cuck ooo! The Red-chested Cuckoo makes a sound people have heard as “it will rain”, although what I hear is “Piet my vrou”: that’s Afrikaans for “Peter my wife”. The best known thing about cuckoos, although it’s not only them that do this, is that they ‘parasitise’ the nests of other birds. Female cuckoos about to lay find a suitable nesting bird of another species and, when there is an opportunity, quickly nip in and lay their cuckoo egg among those of the unknowing host, which incubates the extra egg with her own and feeds the foreigner, even though will become bigger than she is. So the cuckoo outsources to strangers the hard labour of rearing young, and frees herself to lay again. The foreigner usually hatches first and, in some cases, immediately ejects the other eggs or kills the chicks. Some host species have elaborately-marked eggs, or even special marks inside their own chick’s mouths, to make it more difficult for cuckoos to get away with. But cuckoos have evolved to imitate both. The competition goes on. Birds of AFRICAMA House 48 Birds of AFRICAMA House 49