Useless Fact: Brood parasites, put their eggs inside another bird's nest and let another bird parents feed and raise their chicks. The "egg abandoner" is then free to mate again and lay more eggs in another nest. The cuckoo the proper known brood parasite and an expert in the art of cruel deception. Its strategy involves stealth, surprise and speed. The mother removes one egg laid via the host mother, lays her own and flies off with the host egg in her bill. The entire process takes barely ten seconds. Cuckoos parasitize the nests of a large variety of bird species and carefully mimic the colour and pattern of their own eggs to match that of their hosts. Each female cuckoo specializes on a single particular host species. How a cuckoo manages to lay eggs to imitate each host's eggs so accurately is one of nature's main mysteries.
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