Common Cuckoo

The common cuckoo is 32–34 cm long from bill to tail, with a tail of 13–15 cm and a wingspan of 55–60 cm. It has a greyish, slender body and long tail and looks like a sparrowhawk in flight. The iris, orbital ring, base of the bill and feet are yellow. The male's song, goo-ko, is usually given from an open perch, where the bird often sits with drooped wings and raised tail, and the female has a loud bubbling call (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is a brood parasite, laying its eggs in the nests of other birds, particularly dunnocks, meadow pipits and reed warblers, and the eggs in each host's nest resemble the host's eggs, though larger. It also occasionally eats eggs and chicks. The world population is estimated at 25–100 million. The cached account concentrates on Europe. SoIB 2023 lists it as a summer and passage migrant that eats invertebrates, rates it a Low conservation priority, and gives a Large range of about 591,000 km² with insufficient data on trends (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).