Here's one of the stars from my recently released Cuckoos... The Common Cuckoo is a widespread summer migrant to Europe and Asia, and winters in Africa. It eats mostly insects and its favorite amongst those, is caterpillars. Cuckoos are notorious for nest parasitism. Spoken plainly, they lay their eggs in other birds nests and let the new foster parents care for them. The Common Cuckoo possesses the ability to lay eggs in different colors to match the eggs already in the nest. The cuckoo family gets its common name and genus name from the call of the male common cuckoo (which sounds exactly like the clock which is named after it). The English word "cuckoo" comes from the Old French “cucu”, and its earliest recorded usage in English is from around 1240, in the song “Sumer Is Icumen In”. The song is written in Middle English, and the first two lines are: Svmer is icumen in Lhude sing cuccu In modern English, this translates to "Summer has come in / Loudly sing, Cuckoo!"