Whenever spring comes to the Wuyi Mountains, you can hear the cuckoo cries everywhere, as if urging people not to miss the farming season and sow seeds in early spring. This is the mysterious cuckoo bird song. There are many magical legends about the cuckoo. Throughout the ages, many literati have written poems about it. In spring and summer, the cuckoo will sing all night long. Its sad and sad cry often arouses peoples various emotions. In addition, the oral epithelium and tongue of the cuckoo are red. The ancients mistakenly believed that It "crows" until its mouth bleeds, which leads to many legends and poems about "the cuckoo cries blood" and "crows blood with deep resentment".
【The Legend of the Cuckoo】< /p>
It is said that the cuckoo bird that cries blood should be the four-voiced cuckoo commonly known as the cuckoo. Upon closer inspection, the oral epithelium and tongue of the cuckoo are red, and the ancients mistakenly thought that the cuckoo crows with blood all over its mouth. When the cuckoo sings, it is the time when the azalea is in full bloom, so there is also a saying that the color of the azalea is dyed with the blood of the cuckoo bird: "Azaleas and birds are both beautiful and beautiful. Suspected to be blood from the mouth, dripping into flowers on the branches. ”("Complete Tang Poems" Volume 759 Cheng Yanxiongs "Azalea") "The azaleas are singing, like blood and red." It should be that the spring cannot be kept, and the wind and dew are cold and desolate late at night. ”(Qiu Jin)
According to Li Shizhen: “The cuckoo came out of Sichuan and is also found in the south today. It is dressed like a harrier, but its color is dark, with a small crown on its red mouth. It crows at the end of spring, and until dawn at night, it will always go north, especially in summer. It will not stop day and night, and its sound is mournful. The Tian family waits for him to promote farming. But insect-eating beetles cannot make a nest. They live in other nests and give birth to their offspring, hiding in them during the winter months. ”
There is a widely circulated story among the people: "Wang Dis spring heart entrusts the cuckoo", which is said to be in ancient times.In the Shu Kingdom, there was a man named Du Yu. After becoming emperor, he was called "Wang Emperor" and turned into a cuckoo after his death. The name of the cuckoo bird probably comes from this.
Cai Xiang’s poem from the Song Dynasty goes: “With the sound of cuckoo rain, the plows are filled with rain, and it is not only the savages who know how to urge plowing.” There is no need to hoe a lot of people in spring. It is the time when they are transformed into calves. "Lu You also wrote a poem: "The season has passed the Qingming Festival, and the cuckoos are singing in the morning. But spring is coming soon, and it is plowing for the country. The red and purple branches are gone, and the ears of green and yellow wheat are in full bloom. From now on, there is no need to listen to the sound of Shuns string. ”The cuckoo urging plowing in the poem. That is the cuckoo bird. Zhu Xizhen, a poet of the Southern Song Dynasty, said: "The cuckoos are returning in spring with their cries, but the cuckoos still remain with their cries of blood." ” It also fully reflects the serious and responsible spirit of the cuckoo crying in order to encourage people to "cuckoo".
In Europe, the cuckoo’s call means the arrival of spring, because the cuckoo spends the winter in Africa every year and returns in March when the climate warms in Europe. After mating, the female cuckoo is ready to lay eggs, but she will not build her own nest.
It will come to the nest of smaller birds such as robins, spiny-billed warblers, remove one of the eggs from the original nest, and replace it with its own eggs. Compared to its body size, its eggs are small, and the markings on the eggs are very similar to those of other birds it is mixed with, so it is difficult to distinguish them. If not, its eggs would surely have been thrown away.
Cuckoo eggs hatch earlier than other bird eggs. After the baby bird comes out, it will immediately throw the other eggs out of the nest. It does this because it will soon grow so big that it will need to eat all the food its foster mother can find. Cuckoos fly back to Europe in the spring and rest on wood piles, branches or wires to call for mates. The cuckoo gets its name from its call: an easily identifiable "cuckoo" sound. A young cuckoo is being fed by its foster mother, a much smaller spiny-billed warbler. It requires as much food as 3-4 chicks from its foster mother would have eaten. Cuckoos lay eggs in their nests when other birds are not looking. It has to do this very quickly. Its eggs have a particularly thick shell so they won't shatter when dropped into the nest.
