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"Di-di-diiiiiiiiiiderick!"

End of my "going cuckoo" for the moment.

Be on the lookout for this stunning bird! It is very common this time of the year. Difficult to find thou as it if well camouglaged. Seen often when flying... most of the times away from a weaver's nest with the owner hot on pursute!

Too cute to see weavers feeding the yound cuckoo's. The weaver male often with a look of "what da!!" on his face. Probably suspecting the milkman.

We saw a couple in Satara in January. Here is one seen at the "new" water feature. Was present in that area for the 3 days we were there.

one of ken newman's "garden birds" so everyone should learn this one

the call is the 1st giveaway but the bird is very active in all gardens so the KNP camps are perfect for spotting them

they have arrived already being summer visitors

LMAOROTF@Diderick!!

Whilst mowing the lawn yesterday I constantly had this little cuckoo flying overhead "diedeircking" his lungs out... with a weaver, sometimes up to three hot in pursuit on his tail feathers.

He took a rest in a tree in my garden providing some good views of it. But not long after that his chasers found him again and he had to flee for his life.

Meanwhile I am sure the missus was unknowingly laying her eggs in the "dumb pursuers’'" nests.

Was really funny witnessing all of this.

Also heard one calling for all it was worth in my area the other day, a glorious sign of Summer.

In Dec Skukuza Camp had them in almost every second tree. Hope they are still there now in Feb for the cricket.

The male and female Diderick cuckoo, Chrysococcyx caprius, differs markedly in colouration and can often cause new birders ID problems. Here are examples showing the difference...





The male is a beautiful irridescent green while the female shows some rufous bronze. She also does not have the red eye and eye-ring sported by the male.

It is a brood parasite and mainly used bishops, weavers, sparrows and wagtails to play host to their chicks. It actually removes the egg from the host's nest, eating it some distance away. The female can lay up to 24 eggs during a breeding season, one egg per host's nest.

The newly hatched Diderick cuckoo evicts any competition from the nest when it is 3 days old.

About half of the cuckoos survive to nest-leaving age.

Today I witnessed a Diderick Cuckoo begging for food from it's host parents, a pair of Southern Maksed Weavers, although quite early in the season all seemed normal, untill....

... when the hosts had left the tree, the young Diderick was quite happy in the tree but obviously had not had enough to eat because upon seeing an adult DIDERICK CUCKOO he (or she, now a days one has to be pollitcally corrcet) hopped over and after repeated begging the adult Cuckoo flew away, I lost interest but later heard the chick calling again turning a round to see what was happening I witnessed the adult Cuckoo feeding the chick a caterpillar .

Waiting to see if it happens again, to try and get a photo . But I wanted to know have any of you seen or heard of this before, if not I could get a big prize on 50/50.

If the cuckoo doing the feeding was a male I can only suppose that something in the chicks behaviour elicited a courtship response from it. In courtship the female sometimes begs - fluttering wings and forward reaching gaping mouth - as the male presents her with a Caterpillar.

Well I didn't see the weavers feeding the Cuckoo so yeah, you could have hit the nail on the head. Being the very new birder that I am, maybe the "chick" was a female. Only really good at identifying male birds

I was almost glad your SO did not do what I suggested and seal up the JoJo tank you were in and switch the water on.

I am also worried (seeing as I know you are a musketeer) that you show more interest in identifying males than females. I may need to have a chat with that lovely SO of yours.

HAHAHA! Watch out I don't come to the Hotel and seal you in a JoJo!

We saw the same kind of thing happen on Saturday during our BBD outing.
A male Diederik giving an insect (think it was a big moth) to another. Our first thought was also a chick being fed which would be rather strange. I however then remembered reading somewhere about the 'courtship ritual' where the male presents food to the female.
I could clearly see the red eye of the male and the other bird definitely did not have a red eye, so I guess it had to be a female or a juvenile. If I remember correctly the bill was black and not red so that would make it a female then.
Very interesting behaviour to observe.

Front view:

Larger Pic

My first decent experience of this Cukoo
Are they territorial because the day before two cukoos were fighting in the exact spot right in front of me but no pix

The juvenile Diederik in turn looks much different from its parents, sporting a bright red beak and pale blue eyes. With age the bill will turn black and the eyes red (if it is a male bird) or brown (if it is a female bird.


Large view