Cuckoo: Cheating by Nature

Description:

The cuckoo is Nature's most famous cheat, regularly manipulating and deceiving other species into raising their young. This book exposes these generally plain-looking birds to be some of the most cunning and inventive creatures in the natural world. Using shrewd detective skills he reveals the astonishing and beautiful adaptations that have taken place in the cuckoos' long battle to keep on outwitting their hosts. While the hosts are developing better defences, the cuckoo is constantly coming up with novel forms of trickery, and the author, who has studied cuckoos for three decades, is our guide to unraveling how and why these are taking place.