I think I'm going cuckoo

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing
A voice, a mystery.

                     Wordsworth (who clearly didn't live around here)


Firstly, let me point out that this post is not about lemurs.
In fact it isn’t even about Madagascar.

I’m taking a break from my lemur litany to indulge in a bit of a gripe.

I need it.

You see my neighbourhood ‘invisible thing’ is driving me to distraction.


I’m sure you know how it feels to be assailed by an apparently innocuous sound, endlessly repeated.
Whether it’s the plink of a dripping tap or a tune circling in your mind, incessant repetition can push the sanest of us into madness. (And after eight years as a recluse, sanity is not my strong suit.)

My own personal bugbear comes feather-coated. He swept in about a month ago, all fresh and perky after a winter vacation in equatorial Africa. Dressed elegantly in soft grey, with a waistcoat of pinstripes and salmon cravat, he’s far too dapper for his slightly embarrassing moniker: the red-chested cuckoo (Cuculus solitarius).

 

Like other cuckoos, the red-chested (Cuculus solitarius) is dressed to impress. His slick hawk-like shape, raptorish eye-ring and sparrow-hawk chest stripes are no accident. Experiments show that the stripes alone are enough to intimidate potential cuckoo-rearers, allowing the wearer access to nests. Photo by Johann du Preez.


My red-chested cuckoo is out for a good time.
Having staked out a bachelor pad in the trees along the river, he dallies at special ‘song posts’ hidden in the foliage (essential, to avoid the shot-gun blasts of irate listeners) and sends forth his message. Repeatedly.

Now his descending, three-note call is not unpleasant per se (you can listen to it here).
But repeated stridently - at one second intervals – for hour after hour after hour, it’s simply soul destroying. And don’t imagine that nightfall brings relief. Mere darkness is no deterrent to a red-chested cuckoo on the make.

Tossing and turning sleeplessly, I’ve had plenty of time to ponder the purpose of his incessant advertising. Is he warning off rivals or serenading the ladies? At the risk of eroding your sympathy, I’ll admit (solely for scientific purposes) that he does occasionally take a break; sometimes for several days at a stretch (ah, blessed relief).
But this is weird behaviour for a bird that defends its territory with song. Does he only engage in operatics when he has an audience?
I’ve come to the conclusion that what he’s really shouting is,
“Have I got a nest for you!”

You see, in red-chested cuckoo society, it’s the male who screens prospective foster parents. When not driving innocent bystanders insane, he skulks about spying on the neighbours. Once he spots a happy couple preparing their nursery, he hurriedly leads (one of) his true loves to the spot and helpfully distracts the parents-to-be while she sneaks in and lays an egg. To make the crime scene less conspicuous, she then scoffs a resident egg (why waste a good egg?).

Like all his kind, this cute red-chested cuckoo chick won his spoiled, only-child status by murder (struggle, push, shove... ‘Oh look, chick/egg overboard. Now how did that happen?’).
Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.

As I’m sure you know, cuckoos produce eggs that look similar to those of their victims to assist them in their evil egg-switching.
This is all good and fine if you’re a cuckoo species that freeloads on only one type of bird. But my annoying red-chested cuckoos don’t put all their eggs in one basket (that way, they could become extinct... or so I fantasize).
No, my cuckoos foist their ankle-biters off on to 18 different species of sucker, all of whom produce very different looking eggs. So how do the cuckoos mix and match?

Well not all red-chested cuckoos are born equal. In any one place, you’ll find several different races (called gentes), each of which specialises in hoodwinking just one particular host, and produces the eggs to match.
But how do the cuckoos maintain this racial purity? What happens when a girl from the Cape robin gens (gens is the singular of gentes) is swept off her feet by a boy from the wagtail gens. Will the couple’s daughters ever find a suitable nest for their miscegenated eggs?
Alternatively if maiden cuckoos always abide by family tradition and only choose lovers from within their own gens (i.e. there’s no racial mixing), surely the races are really different species?

The answer is devious. Unlike mammals - where it’s the male who totes the whacky, sex-defining Y chromosome - birds do things the other way around. Macho birds carry two Z chromosomes while the ladies are ZW. Egg colour is craftily encoded on the W chromosome, so it’s always passed on – unadulterated - from mother to daughter regardless of what or whom Dad is (as he can only ever contribute a Z chromosome).

A recent study of greater honeyguides (OK, not a cuckoo but employing the same nefarious means of reproduction) found that their gentes are extremely ancient. When the researchers looked at the honeyguides’ mitochondrial DNA (which comes only from Mum) they found that the gentes had remained entirely separate and unsullied for millions of years. But when they looked at the chromosomal DNA (which comes from both Mum and Dad) they could find no difference between gentes (because everyone happily interbreeds).

The eye of the beholder. Some gentes of red-chested cuckoo lay eggs that don’t match those of their target species. So why do the victims accept them? Unlike us, birds are able to see near ultraviolet wavelengths. When researchers examined the eggs using ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometery, they found that they were similar. Oops.
Photo by Johann du Preez.

Among their other weird traits, cuckoos are renowned for their fondness for hairy caterpillars (they munch them, not keep them as pets). They develop this predilection only in adulthood because no sensible foster parent offers a chick such noxious fare. Furred caterpillars are eschewed by almost all birds thanks to their urticating hairs (I love that word; it means ‘stinging like a nettle’). The tips of these hairs are detachable and dispense irritating poison. Although cuckoos scrub their dinner thoroughly (you can see footage here), the lining of their gizzard still ends up bristling with cactus-like spines. To rid themselves of these, European cuckoos slough off and regurgitate bits of mucous membrane lining (a trick most of us employ only after dining on dodgy prawns).



Local cuckoo food.
Who wouldn't want one as a pet?


It was perhaps this ability to stomach noxious things that encouraged our ancestors to link cuckoos with wedlock. The sceptre of the ancient Greek goddess of marriage is normally topped by a cuckoo rampant, and folklaw stipulates that to hear a cuckoo is good luck for those about to tie the knot, and a portent of adultery for those already wed. Since I fall into neither category, I’ll opt for the alternative claim: the number of cuckoo calls you hear signifies the number of years until you marry or die (whichever comes first).

By my calculation, I should still be going strong in 9011.
How long my sanity will last is another question entirely.

Pillow magic

I’m not a superstitious person.

I’ve a deep fondness for black cats, and will happily loiter under even the most rickety of ladders.
But sometimes things just happen...

Last Saturday was one of those times.


Now I’m sure you know those cutesy old-wives-tales about placing things under your pillow.

Sleeping on a chunk of wedding cake brings dreams of your future spouse (or devourment by mice), a spoon ensures a snowfall, a bay leaf conjures prophetic dreams and a mirror lets you see the face of your next lover. Oh, and don’t forget that your boyfriend’s unwashed sock will, when slept upon, guarantee he never leaves you (although, by then, you’ll probably want him to).

But these harmless little myths spring from a much darker tradition.
‘Pillow magic’ is big in the shadowy realm of Voodoo.

The idea is that you sneakily conceal a charm (composed of bones, hair, string, herbs, toenails, morsels of black cockerel) within the pillow of someone you hate. (And if you’re pressed for time, you can buy handy little pre-made ‘voodoo pillow bags’ on the internet). This talisman not only disturbs the victim’s slumber, it saps their very life force. Night after night the charm grows stronger (and the victim wastes away) until finally it bursts forth as a monstrous beast or bird (a tupilek) which kills the sleeper. Pretty natty, huh?

Now bearing this in mind, you can imagine my consternation when my field assistant announced on Saturday that she’d found a monstrous beast lurking under her pillow.

Dashing into her room, I confirmed the worst.
Poking out from beneath the pillowcase was a glistening, terracotta coil.
It belonged to a Mozambique spitting cobra who gazed up at me myopically, flicking in and out its little black tongue.

A Mozambique spitting cobra tucked up enjoying some creature comforts. (Yes, I know the colour of this bedding could induce insomnia, without the aid of voodoo, but it was VERY cheap.)

 

The photograph we failed to take in the heat of the moment.
Photo by Arno and Louise Meintjes





Tradition dictates that all voodoo-related entities must be doused with salt and set alight. But even for someone who suffers a snake phobia, this seemed a trifle harsh.

Yet how were we supposed to remove the beast? Spitting cobras are renowned for their... well, spitting. They can spray venom up to 1.5 m (5 ft) and they shoot for the eyes.

Now if you’ve ever wondered how a cobra manages to accurately target its victim’s eyes (this is something I’ve admittedly taken for granted), science has solved the puzzle.

Brave, goggle-wearing researchers have found that spitting cobras do their stuff in response to a jerky head movement by their assailant.
Sixty-five milliseconds after you’ve unwisely turned your head, the cobra begins to rapidly nod and shake its own head, visually pinpointing your precise location. It then stops nodding, and tracks its head in the same direction (and at the same speed) as your own movement (thus compensating for the moving target). And 200 milliseconds after you first began to move, it squirts a jet of venom from its fangs, jerking its head rapidly from side to side as it does so, to ensure a wide, fan-like spray of eye-searing droplets. (You can read a popular account of this research here.)

While this is all very interesting, it doesn’t leave one feeling particularly optimistic about extracting a spitting cobra from one’s bed.

 

A Mozambique spitting cobra (Naja mossambica) in action. The species’ venom is more dilute than that of non-spitting cobras. Of course, it can still kill you, if you let the critter bite.

Photo by Steven Gilham.

 

After some deliberation, we opted for the strategic placement of a postal tube and a bit of judicious prodding with a broom.

Oh yeah, and we squinted a lot.

And - hey presto - it worked like a charm: pre-packaged cobra ready for translocation.



However, while I was busily wielding the broom (and trying in vain not to move my head), I noticed something (even more) disturbing.

The snake was not alone under the pillow.

There was a book there too.

Edging it out from beneath the covers, I looked at the title: ‘Mongoose Watch’ by Anne Rasa.



Now this is a very readable account of a field study of dwarf mongooses carried out in the 1980s. I’d recommend it.

But might it explain our ‘pillow serpent’?

You see everyone KNOWS that mongooses like to kill and eat snakes.

If sleeping on wedding cake can conjure up spouses, and stinky socks, boyfriends, what happens when you snooze on a book about mongooses??



I’ll let you decide.

Not that I believe in superstitions...