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I recently observed the courtship referred to earlier in this thread and took some pix to illustrate the behaviour. Mr Diderick would catch a caterpillar and offer it to the begging female while he proudly cocks his tail and hangs his wings in the universal male courting pose. This male hit upon a horde of caterpillars, sometimes arriving with another offering before the paramour had swallowed the previous present.


Large view

Diderick cuckoos feed almost exclusively on caterpillars and termites. The pair thus forms a bond that extends to a play of distraction and deceit where the male cuckoo would have the potential host of his brood committed to chase him from their nesting site. While so occupied and their nest unattended, the female sneaks into the host’s nest and quickly deposits an egg. They mainly use bishops, weavers, sparrows and wagtails to play host to their chicks, actually removing any eggs present in the host's nest, sometimes even eating it some distance away. The female can lay up to 24 eggs during a breeding season, one egg per host's nest.

The cuckoos must be careful in their quest... if caught by the robust bishops and weavers, they risk serious injury. Having ringed numerous Cape, lesser masked and Southern masked weavers, I can attest to their ability to deliver a serious bite… certainly powerful enough to even kill a cuckoo. This misfortune befalling the Diderick has been witnessed previously.

The newly hatched Diderick cuckoo evicts any competition from the nest when it is 3 days old. It stays in the nest for about 19-22 days, and out of the nest, the chick remains with its adopted parents for about 21 more days. The juvenile Diederik looks much different from its parents, sporting a bright red beak and pale blue eyes, as shown in a portrait in an earlier post. 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), so you cannot really confuse male, female and juvenile birds.

About half of the cuckoo chicks survive to nest-leaving age, making it a very successful bird!

Have seen this Diderick Cuckoo at Transport dam right next to where I was parked. Is it still a juvenile, that was maybe raised by one of the weavers nesting there? We saw her on the exact same spot 3 days in a row

After searching my garden countiniously without any positive results i finnaly twitched this bird in Satara

Exactly the place i saw mine BM At girivana dam there was a pair courting. We sat and watched them for a few min a few days. They were there every time we visited the dam.

Perseverance, a mobile phone and a pair of bins, and Tada! One juvenile Diderick!

Perseverance indeed! Its been 3 days that the Southern Masked Weavers have been feeding it. At first I assumed Piet-my-vrou as it was around. When it came down from the tree tops I recognised the Diderick. Unmistakeable.

Saw this one on the bridge outside Lower Sabie

Hi all,
I took this picture in Satara camp a couple of years ago but the Diederik cuckoo appears to be too big to actually get inside the weavers nest. Does it carry it's egg to the nest and then simply swop it for a weavers egg? It all happened so quickly and it never actually got any farther into the nest than shown - Of course the two weavers on it's back didn't make the task any easier.
Bond U.K.

Great shot!

Hi bondm

I once read an article [with photos], in Custos magazine, about a cuckoo being woven into the entrance of a weavers nest of a large colony in a Camelthorn tree in the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park [now the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park].

If I remember correctly the cuckoo got caught in the entrance and could not extract itself in time before the weavers wove it in so that it was impossible for it to escape.

Hi Mountainview,
Great story - I'll try and remember that one. Thanks.
Bondm UK

Dec. 2008, Lower Sabie: The trees near the swimming pool were full of weaver nests. The cuckoos seemd to be really attracted by the nests. The weavers were not amused at all and tried to chase the cuckoos away!

Amazing, Mountainview!!! But might it not have been that the cuckoo was raised by the weavers and waited too long before leaving the nest…thus were too big to get out?

This Diderick Cuckoo, with its Southern Masked-Weaver mom, were regular visitors to our Joburg garden this summer…I took this photo the last time I saw them (03 April). The Weaver fed the never-ending moaning cuckoo seed from the birdfeeder.

This thread has become one of the most comprehensive species accounts in the forum's species collection. Lo and behold, there is yet more to come!




Large view

The female Diderick cuckoo, after depositing her own egg, removes the egg of the host from the nest she just used. She usually flies some distance away from the nest before consuming the prize.

I watched this bird for a good 15 minutes as she maneuvered the egg this way and that way until a crack developed, then a hole through which she could extract the runny insides. This could have been the egg of any number of species that nest in the reeds or willows close by, but most probably it was that of a southern red bishop or southern masked weaver.

She's having a poached egg...

Amazing info JvR and a brilliant pic

I have learnt something, thank you!