The pure aggressiveness is written all over the faces of the rivals, you almost think you can see the hate glistening in their eyes. Again and again the cuckoos (Cuculus canorus) call from the edge of a bush and then fly over the pulpit with conspicuous, slow wing beats and then land in elder bushes. Sometimes they stay there for a while on a dry exposed branch and impressively spread their tail feathers to impress the competitor. Then again there are impressive chases which, on rare occasions, end with the loud argument as depicted in the image of the blog. A few cuckoos want to settle down here; their territories will probably collide here. However, it may also be that the territories first have to be established.
Great image, this time I shoot it with the Canon EF 400mm f/2.8 IS II USM lens on a Canon EOS 5 R. I can still make a 560 with a converter.
The males are obviously not responsible for defending the breeding territory in all bird species. In the case of the Black Coucal (Centropus grillii), the female apparently takes on this role, as researchers from the Max Planck Institute and the University of Leiden have discovered. Larger females can sing deeper than smaller ones and thus intimidate competitors with their singing. The competitive song of the cuckoo females conveys important information to intruders. This will deter them without fighting. Unfamiliar females can reliably tell from this song whether a confrontation is worthwhile. Because only big females can also sing deeply. Our local Cuckoos can probably only dream of this energy-saving type of debate.
At the end of May, in the first twilight, a diverse and impressive, almost deafening, concert of voices can be heard from the wide reed-based alluvial ponds in many sites in southern Brandenburg. The morning sun creates a very special atmosphere. I can quickly spot a male Whinchat (Saxicola rubetra), then a Marsh Warbler (Acrocephalus palustris) and finally a pair of Red-backed Shrikes in the beautiful morning light and photographed perfectly from a short distance.
To cope with the growing demand for top shots of the rarer species of the Palearctic Bird-Lens is keen to enrich the range of pictures of birds you can find in the western palearctic and beyond. Trips to places like this one to capture images not only of rare birds of western palearctic were very successful. The nice image of the blog is only a first impression, what you will find in the gallery in the “Picture Shop” very soon. Just give bird-lens.com a message, if bird-lens.com could serve you with an image needed before the new pictures are online.