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"Gowk" is an old name for the common cuckoo in northern England, [47] derived from the harsh repeated "gowk" call the bird makes when excited. [4] The well-known cuckoo clock features a mechanical bird and is fitted with bellows and pipes that imitate the call of the common cuckoo. [48]
It is an important bird in folklore. The cuckoo has traditionally been associated with sexual incontinence and infidelity. [9] An old name for the cuckoo was "cuckold's chorister", [10] and old broadsides played on the idea that the cuckoo's call was a reproach to husbands whose wives were unfaithful:
The diederik cuckoo is a smallish cuckoo at 18 to 20 cm. Adult males are glossy green above with copper-sheened areas on the back and whitish underparts. They have a broken white eye-stripe and a short, green malar stripe. All remiges have three to four white spots on the inner vanes.
The cuckoo's distinctive call is used in the 13th-century English "Sumer is icumen in", probably the earliest instance of a birdcall in musical notation. [7] [8] In 1650, Athanasius Kircher represented the calls of several birds in musical notation in his encyclopedic Musurgia Universalis. [9]
The chestnut-breasted malkoha is typical of the Phaenicophaeinae in having brightly coloured skin around the eye.. Cuckoos are medium-sized birds that range in size from the little bronze cuckoo, at 17 g (0.6 oz) and 15 cm (6 in), to moderately large birds, ranging from 60–80 cm (24–31 in) in length, such as the giant coua of Madagascar, the coral-billed ground-cuckoo of Indochina, and ...
Cuckoo clock, a so-called Jagdstück ("hunt piece"), Black Forest, c. 1900, Deutsches Uhrenmuseum, Inv. 2006-013. A cuckoo clock is a type of clock, typically pendulum driven, that strikes the hours with a sound like a common cuckoo call and has an automated cuckoo bird that moves with each note. Some move their wings and open and close their ...
The great spotted cuckoo (Clamator glandarius) is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, the Cuculiformes, which also includes the roadrunners, the anis and the coucals. It is widely spread throughout Africa and the Mediterranean Basin. It is a brood parasite that lays its eggs in the nests of corvids, in particular the Eurasian magpie.
The call of the male Oriental cuckoo is a series of low paired notes, poo-poo, with both notes stressed equally. It is somewhat similar to the call of the hoopoe. It may be introduced with a four to eight note phrase or sometimes with grating notes. The female's call is a deep bubbling trill. Outside the breeding season, the birds are usually ...