Before I started keeping birds, I had only heard of one
brood parasite without even really knowing the term – the cuckoo. I remember hearing stories of murdered chicks
and destroyed eggs and a giant offspring which could never belong to the
parent, taking over their lives. It
seemed tragic and unfair, but that’s nature.
Since becoming a bird-keeping, I have learned a little more
about the subject. There are quite a few
different types of brood parasites like cuckoos, but not all of them are as destructive
to the host nest. And some are.
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| Lesser Honeyguide |
Honeyguides
The gentle sounding Honeyguides are African birds who are
often followed by locals to find bee colonies, as they feed on the wax and the
bee larvae, hence their name. However, they
are not as sweet as they sound because they lay their eggs in other birds
nests. Not only that, but they throw
host eggs out of the nest or even puncture the eggs with their thin, sharp beak
to kill the chicks. The bird they
parasite depends on the exact species of Honeyguide but can be anything from a
woodpecker to a warbler.
Whydahs
My (hopefully) hands on experience with parasitic birds will
come from a finch called a Pin tailed Whydah which I have recently
purchased. These beautiful little birds
are black and brown when out of breeding condition, but when ready to breed,
the male moults into a stunning little black and white bird with a tail that is
easily twice the length of his body.
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| My Pin-tailed Whydah cock |
Pin-tailed Whydahs parasite the nests of a little waxbill
called the Common Waxbill or the St Helena Waxbill. But the good thing about this relationship is
that the Whydahs don’t destroy the waxbill eggs and the waxbills rear both sets
of chick together. The Whydahs have
evolved that they can mimic the calls of their host species and are judged by
the female based on how good they are at this.
The chicks also resemble waxbill chicks when they are born so their
foster parents readily accept them.
There are various species of Whydah, some of which are known
as Indigobirds, many of which aren’t kept in the UK. All of them parasite one
of the smaller finch species that are native to their local areas. For example, the Village Indigobird lays in
the nests of the Red-billed Firefinch and the Quailfinch Indigobird lays in the
Quailfinch nest.
Ducks
The Common Goldeneye is a parasitic duck, well
technically. These ducks live in the US
and Canada as well as across Russia, and the Scandinavian countries and the
female lays her eggs in the nest of other species, and they will be raised with
the foster parents family.
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| Common Goldeneye |
Similarly, the Black headed Duck from South America, also
lays in other birds nests and use them as a feathered incubator. They lay the eggs in nests of all sorts of
birds including even gulls and birds of prey and when the chicks hatch, they
are out of the nest in no time at all and are able to fend for themselves
within a few hours.
Conclusion
So it was nice to know that not all brood parasites are as
destructive to the host species as the cuckoo and meant I was happy to have a
pair of Whydahs in my aviary. Here’s
hoping they breed!
