Family:
The great spotted cuckoo is a large, slender cuckoo with a striking pattern, a small crest, and longer wings, tail, and bill than the common cuckoo. It has grey upperparts with white spots, white underparts, and a dark tail. The head is grey with a pale yellow throat, and the grey bill curves downwards slightly. Males and females look similar.
Like the common cuckoo, the great spotted cuckoo is a brood parasite, although it doesn’t remove the host’s eggs or chicks.
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Great spotted cuckoos eat mostly hairy or spiny caterpillars which are disagreeable to most other species of birds. They remove the hairs before they eat them by beatiing them on the ground or the branch of a tree. They also eat termites, grasshoppers, moths, spiders, and occasionally small lizards.
Great spotted cuckoos are found in southern Europe in the Mediterranean Basin in open woodland, savanna, heath and scrubland. They migrate to Africa for winter although some will stay in Spain.
