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Thu 06 Jun 2009Cuckoos caught out as global warming confounds nature
SWALLOWS ARE arriving in Ireland earlier each year but cuckoos are so confused by climate change that they are now turning up in northern Europe too late to drop their eggs in other birds’ nests.
According to Konstantin Kreiser, of BirdLife International, this is happening because the “short-hop” migratory birds that cuckoos normally use as surrogate parents are flying north earlier from the Mediterranean basin.
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