Common cuckoo Common cuckoo The common cuckoo ("Cuculus canorus") is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, "Cuculiformes", which includes the roadrunners, the anis and the coucals. This species is a widespread summer migrant to Europe and Asia, and winters in Africa. It is a brood parasite, which means it lays eggs in the nests of other bird species, particularly of dunnocks, meadow pipits, and reed warblers. Although its eggs are larger than those of its hosts, the eggs in each type of host nest resemble the host's eggs. The adult too is a mimic, in its case of the sparrowhawk;
Scaled ground cuckoo head, greenish-brown crest and a curved beak. The upper parts are dark brown, the tail blackish and the underparts pale tan. It has been claimed that it easily can be separated from the rufous-vented ground cuckoo by the lack of a dark chest band, but the variation in this feature in Amazonian rufous-vented ground cuckoos makes the features questionable. As a consequence, recent authorities commonly treat the scaled ground cuckoo as a subspecies of the rufous-vented ground cuckoo. The scaled ground cuckoo is a shy, secretive bird and is seldom seen. Its call is not known, but like other ground