In April, I listened with pleasure to the Taku Winds’ performance of Moussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. One of the “pictures” illustrated in music is called (in English) the Ballet of the ...

For the first time, scientists have found a bird species–Australia’s superb fairy-wren–that can spot a murderer. The killers are chicks of a particularly aggressive cuckoo species. The crime begins ...

Cuckoos are some of nature’s most practiced—and successful—con artists. Many species from this large family of birds are brood parasites. They lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and outsource ...

Just ask 11-year-old Clara Fondow about her 4H chickens, then sit back and enjoy a whole lot of information about them in a very short time. First there’s Ginger, a golden cuckoo marans chick. Helen ...

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. How do new species arise? And why are there so many of them? One possible ...

The great spotted cuckoo is a parasitic bird that plops its eggs in nests of other birds, so others can care for its chicks. Those chicks might... This Freeloading Bird Brings Help — And The Help ...

Brood parasites are some of the bird kingdom’s most notorious sneaks. They don’t rear their own young but instead pawn the task of child care off onto other species without their knowledge. Instead of ...

This story appears in the January 2018 issue of National Geographic magazine. For the care and feeding of its offspring, the common cuckoo outsources. When she’s ready to lay an egg, a female Cuculus ...