Cuckoo
Unlike most birds, Cuckoos (also Woodpeckers and Parrots) have evenly balanced feet with toes 1 and 4 pointing backwards and toes 2 and 3 forwards. The name for this unusual configuration is zygodactylous and means "yoke fingered", a yoke being the evenly balanced beam across the shoulders of oxen or humans for pulling or carrying. Although if you very closely you can see that the toes are not even because just like birds with typical feet (three toes forward, one back) the hind claw (toe 4) and the middle front claw (toe 2) are longer than the others. Here you can see a big difference in the size of the two forward pointing toes.
This was the remarkably confiding juvenile Cuckoo that I found on the Peak District Moors a few weeks back. Rather unusually you can see some white bird droppings on its plumage, that I assume has been left by its Meadow Pipit foster parent when it perched on its back to feed the young Cuckoo.
Cuckoo
Unlike most birds, Cuckoos (also Woodpeckers and Parrots) have evenly balanced feet with toes 1 and 4 pointing backwards and toes 2 and 3 forwards. The name for this unusual configuration is zygodactylous and means "yoke fingered", a yoke being the evenly balanced beam across the shoulders of oxen or humans for pulling or carrying. Although if you very closely you can see that the toes are not even because just like birds with typical feet (three toes forward, one back) the hind claw (toe 4) and the middle front claw (toe 2) are longer than the others. Here you can see a big difference in the size of the two forward pointing toes.
This was the remarkably confiding juvenile Cuckoo that I found on the Peak District Moors a few weeks back. Rather unusually you can see some white bird droppings on its plumage, that I assume has been left by its Meadow Pipit foster parent when it perched on its back to feed the young Cuckoo.