Mother Nature is way more clever than we are...it's inspiring

Michaela Strachan on return of Springwatch

- BY NICOLA METHVEN

A wood warbler feeds a much larger cuckoo chick in their nest

A CUCKOO chick which turfs out other eggs from the nest of a pair of reed warblers sums up what Michaela Strachan loves about Springwatch.

The presenter treats every series of the nature show as if it’s the last, in case the plug gets pulled.

So she is delighted to see the footage captured by wildlife filmmaker Robert Fuller after 30 years of trying.

Michaela says: “The thing I find mind-blowing is the fact that the cuckoo chick hatches first in the nest, and it knows to kick the other eggs out. You know it’s hours old, or a day old and it knows to do that. I find that just incredible.

“The other astonishing thing is that the eggs match those of whatever host bird they’ve laid in — and they lay in different host birds. How does that happen?

“We think we’re so clever, and yet Mother Nature is way more clever than we are.”

Sometimes, host birds manage to rear some of their own brood alongside the much larger cuckoo chick but in most cases they are left only with the interloper. Because it is so big, it takes all of the parents’ energy to keep it fed.