Corvus Splendens)

ISRAEL JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY, Vol. 43, 1997, pp. 397-399 NOTE: FIRST RECORD OF GREAT SPOTTED CUCKOO (CLAMATOR GLANDARIUS) PARASITIZING INDIAN HOUSE CROW (CORVUS SPLENDENS) REUVEN Y OSEF International Birdwatching Center, P.O. Box 774, Elat 88I06, Israel The great spotted cuckoo (Clamator glandarius) is known to breed in northern and central Israel. The Indian house crow (Corvus splendens) invaded the Elat region about two decades ago and its population is growing rapidly. Here, I report the first case of a great spotted cuckoo nestling found in the nest of an Indian house crow. This is possibly the first documented parasitic interaction between these two species whose natural distribution does not overlap. The Indian house crow has colonized the Elat-Aqaba region in the past two decades and its ability to exploit human refuse has allowed its population to grow steadily. The first individual was observed in 1976 (Shirihai, 1996) and today the breeding population is estimated at approximately 50 pairs. This is an invading species that has spread from its original range in the Indian subcontinent (Cramp and Perrins, 1994), westward along the coast line of the Indian Ocean and the Saudi Arabian subcontinent, northward along the Red Sea, and southward along the east coast of Africa. In Elat, the species is considered a pest because of its habit of attacking humans that are either eating in the open, or pass in the vicinity of their nests during the breeding season. Because this is a species that has recently invaded the region, there are no data on their reproduction or ecology and predators are mostly undocumented. Only once was a migrating booted eagle (Hieeraaetus pennatus) observed to take an Indian house crow (Yosef, 1996). Initially the crows nested either in the palmeries near the Israeli-Jordanian border, or in Aqaba. In recent years they started to breed in Elat, especially in areas with tall Tamarisk spp. trees. Because of the aggresive behavior of the crows, many Elat residents were forced to remove their nests from residential areas to ensure the safety of their children. In one such case, after children were attacked in the yard for several days in a row, a family decided on 12 August 1997 to destroy the nest in their yard. They climbed the tree and with the help of a long stick dislodged the nest. On the ground, they noted that two fully-feathered nestlings were still in the nest. One died from the impact of the fall and the second had broken its left wing. I identified the live nestling as that of a great spotted cuckoo. E-mail: [email protected] Accepted October 1997. 398 R. YOSEF Isr. J. Zoo!. The great spotted cuckoo is an obligatory brood-parasite that is known to breed in Mediterranean, semi-arid, subtropical, and tropical zones (Cramp, 1985; Shirihai, 1996). Cramp (1985) reports that the known hosts in Europe and Africa are magpie (Pica pica), roller (Coracias garrulus), pied crow (Corvus a/bus), and hoopoe (Upupa epops). In Israel, Paz (1987) considered it to be almost exclusively parasitic on the hooded crow (Corvus corone). However, Shirihai (1996) reports that they also parasitize brown-necked raven (C. ruficollis) and European jay (Garrulus glandarius). In India, the house crow is mostly parasitized by the koel (Eudynamys scolopacea; Cramp and Perrins, 1994 ). Thus, the finding of a great spotted cuckoo nestling in an Indian house crow nest is the first natural documentation of a parasitic interaction between these two species whose natural distributions do not overlap. No cases of breeding of the great spotted cuckoo have ever been reported or suspected in the southern Arava region. In Jordan, breeding is suspected only in the northern Jordan Valley (Andrews, 1995). There are also no records from the Sinai peninsula (Shirihai, 1996). In Egypt, it has only been reported along the Nile and is a known brood parasite of the hooded crow (Baha el Din et al., 1989). In Israel, the main breeding areas are the coastal and Judean Plains and the northern Jordan River, Jezreel and Hula Valleys, with a few sites in the northwestern Negev, and a sporadic report from the central Arava in July 1974 (Shirihai, 1996). Hence, the finding of the chick is not only the first interspecific interaction between these two species, but also a record of the great spotted cuckoo breeding distribution further south than was previously known. The spread of the two species: the great spotted cuckoo southward and the house crow northward, has most probably been facilitated by human settlement in the Arava and the planting of large tracts of agricultural land. Gardening with exotic trees, refuse tips, and other human-related activities in the desert region have also allowed other human commensials to change their natural distribution and to spread with the settle ments into the desert. It would be interesting in the future to see whether the great spotted cuckoo will exploit other avian species that had not been previously exposed to its parasitic behavior. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank Dan Graur and an anonymous reviewer for improving an earlier draft of this manuscript. REFERENCES Andrews. I. J. 1995. The birds of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Andrews, Midlothian, Scotland. Baha el Din, S., Hobbs, J. J., and Mullie. W. C. 1989. The birds of Egypt. Oxford University Press, New York. Cramp, S. (ed.). 1985. Handbook of the birds of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Vol. 4. Terns to Woodpeckers. Oxford University Press, Oxford. .

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