Don’t Be A Cuckoo.
The Cuckoo is a very unusual bird in that the female lays her eggs in another birds nest. Her favoured species are the nests of dunnock, meadow pipit and reed bunting. The female cuckoo will generally lay her eggs in the nest of the same species of bird that reared her and so the cycle continues.
More than 120 species of birds have been parasitised by the Cuckoo in Europe and the young cuckoo who has hatched in another birds nest does not tolerate the young of the female bird who will rear her and so only the cuckoo survives.
Resemble anything?
Each female will lay anywhere between 12 and 22 eggs and all in different nests. (Living with Birds — Jacobi Jayne)
That is a lot of skulduggery at play in the Animal Kingdom as well it would seem, but here the Cuckoo is the lone offender.
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And this is how this species of bird has evolved to survive. Or maybe she just saw an opportunity and took it. Maybe she preys on the more vulnerable because she can. Maybe she just is adverse to child rearing or should I say bird rearing. Who knows? But the end result is the taker survives and the lives of the innocent ones are cut short because not all play fairly and the natural world is not without its rule breakers either.
Some, both humans and birds, work hard every day and then, another swoops in to steal the day and have their way. And they are bigger and stronger and just push aside the smaller ones and they say it is “Survival of the fittest”, but I also think, “It is survival of the more cunning.”
They never learnt to work, rest and play in a healthy way and now profit off another’s way of life.
Remind you of anything?
The Colonists came from the badlands of Europe. Their own cities were filthy, dirty, sewer drenched and rat infested places. They had a lot of work to do at home but instead of doing their homework, they went on the lang (skipping school) and set off on their ships of disaster. Anything rather than clean up their own mess, right?
In their infinite wisdom, I jest, and not having a clue about how to live in harmony with nature anymore because they were stream rolled over by their delusions, they headed for far off lands to ply their ignorance and place their cuckoo eggs in another’s nest. And here we are today.
And we live in a world filled with cuckoos and we rear their oversized eggs. And we live in the land of cuckoos and all that play with our heads.
