Cuckoo egg in reed warbler nest, a webcam first

This 2014 video shows a young cuckoo, fed by its foster parent, an Eurasian reed warbler.

A worldwide webcam first: today, a webcam was installed in the Gelderse Poort nature reserve in Gelderland province.

The webcam shows a Eurasian reed warbler nest. In that nest, last week a female cuckoo laid an egg. If all will go as expected, then this week the young cuckoo will hatch. Female cuckoos time laying their eggs in other birds’ nests so that the cuckoo egg will hatch just before the other eggs. As a cuckoo hatchling can push reed warbler eggs out of the nest, but has a much bigger problem doing that to reed warbler hatchlings.

You can watch the webcam, where the reed warbler now sits on one reed warbler egg and one cuckoo egg, here.

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