Rarely Parasitized and Unparasitized Species Mob and Alarm Call to Cuckoos: Implications For Sparrowhawk Mimicry By Brood Parasitic Cuckoos

—Recent experiments support the longstanding hypothesis that Common Cuckoos (Cuculus canorus) are mimics of Eurasian Sparrowhawks (Accipiter nisus). Additional experiments further suggest that mimicry benefits the cuckoos by reducing the intensity of mobbing they suffer near host nests, at least in some host populations, potentially increasing their access to the hosts’ nests. We observed two species of birds—one very rarely parasitized and the other never parasitized by cuckoos—responding to a cuckoo as they would a bird of prey. On the island of Öland, Sweden, we observed two instances of a gray phase cuckoo being mobbed by a group of Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) during the non-breeding season. These mobbing observations cannot be explained as a consequence of selection in the context of brood parasitism, because swallows are extremely rare cuckoo hosts and should not show co-evolutionary responses to parasitism. Instead, the swallows appear to have mistaken the cuckoos for Eurasian Sparrowhawks and responded as they would to true hawks. Similar observations were made in California, where a vagrant Common Cuckoo repeatedly elicited alarm calls from Bushtits (Psaltriparus minimus), a species completely allopatric with cuckoos and thus with no evolutionary history of brood parasitism. Because Eurasian Sparrowhawks visually resemble related North American bird-eating Accipiter hawks in plumage and flight characteristics, the cuckoo likely triggered a general Accipiter response in the Bushtits. Together, these observations provide additional evidence that cuckoos successfully mimic Eurasian Sparrowhawks and that such mimicry comes not only with benefits to the cuckoos, but costs as well. Received 2 October 2012. Accepted 2 March 2013.