School: Áth Treasna (B.) (roll number 11236)

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1. Migrant Birds (continued)

   

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   In the middle of June,
   She changes her tune,
   In July she flies away.

   The cuckoo is a bird which neither makes a nest, hatches her egg or rears the young bird. She lays her egg on the ground takes it up in her beak and deposits it in the nest of a riafóg or sparrow. When the young cuckoo grows up he shoulders the other young birds out of the nest and they afterwards die of exposure and starvation. The parents keep on feeding the young cuckoo until it is quite big. It flies away to Africa in August.
   The corncrake is brown a bird about the same size and shape as a two-months old chicken, and its legs are rather long. Although it is very well able to fly, it depends more in its legs that its wings, when trying to escape from any danger. It will not fly except when very hard pressed. It reaches this country before the cuckoo and its harsh croaking can be heard in the meadows.
   She builds her nest of dry grass in a hollow in the ground.

   (continues on next page)

   

   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. agents (~1)
      1. animal-lore (~1,185)
         1. bird-lore (~2,478)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Francis Kelleher

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Scarteen Lower, Co. Cork