Common cuckoo lay eggs that better imitate the host's eggs, the host species adapts and is more able to distinguish the cuckoo egg. A study of 248 common cuckoo and host eggs demonstrated that female cuckoos that parasitised common redstart nests laid eggs that matched better than those that targeted dunnocks. Spectroscopy was used to model how the host species saw the cuckoo eggs. Cuckoos that target dunnock nests lay white, brown-speckled eggs, in contrast to the dunnock's own blue eggs. The theory suggests that common redstarts have been parasitised by common cuckoos for longer, and so have evolved to be better
Common crane Waterbirds" (AEWA) applies. In Ireland, despite being extinct for over 200 years, the common crane plays a very important part in Irish culture and folklore and so thus recent efforts to encourage it back to Ireland are received with much enthusiasm. The Kranich Museum in Hessenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, is dedicated to art and folklore related to the common crane. The common crane is the sacred bird of the god Hephaestus, and it features heavily in the god's iconography. Common crane The common crane ("Grus grus"), also known as the Eurasian crane, is a bird of the family Gruidae, the cranes.