Useless Fact: Brood parasites, lay down their own eggs inside another bird's nest and let the other bird parents feed and raise their chicks. The "egg abandoner" is then liberated to mate again and lay more eggs in another nest. The cuckoo is the best known brood parasite and a professional in the skill of cruel deception. Its strategy involves stealth, surprise and speed. The mother removes one egg laid via the host mother, lays her very own and flies off while using host egg in her bill. The entire process takes barely ten seconds. Cuckoos parasitize the nests of a large various bird species and carefully mimic the colour and pattern of their own eggs to complement that relating to their hosts. Each female cuckoo specializes using one particular host species. How the cuckoo manages to lay eggs to imitate each host's eggs so accurately is one kind of nature's main mysteries.
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