Does a cuckoo know it's a cuckoo? The answer is more difficult than you might think, explains Richard Pallardy ...

In one of the more notorious dick-moves of the animal kingdom, parasitic cuckoo birds lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, forcing them to raise the cuckoo chicks as if they were their own. New ...

Common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) in flight. This is an adult male: Grey morph adult females have a pinkish-buff or buff background to the barring and the sides of the neck, and sometimes small rufous ...

Nest building is costly. It requires time, energy, and constant defence from predators. For birds that raise their own young, this investment makes sense because it ensures survival of their chicks.

Most birds spend hours, days, or even weeks painstakingly building their nests. Some birds make nests out of mud, some build nests in trees, and some birds nest on the ground and simply scrape out a ...