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Birding Longcanggou, Sichuan again (but maybe for the last time)

10,000 Birds

Apparently , they use the presence of their own eggs as a cue for recognizing parasitic eggs – so without the presence of their own eggs as a template they fail to recognize a parasitic egg. Some individuals even rejected their own eggs when they were in the minority. All caused by mammals.

Eggs 172
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Birding the Wolongshan area in June 2023

10,000 Birds

Indeed, most cuckoo eggs are accepted by the babax ( source ), although a small proportion of hosts reject cuckoo eggs and often boast about this capability when having a few too many drinks. I think I pointed out in previous posts that mammals are kind of evil. In contrast, the paper by Martens et al.