The Cuckoo: Nature's Bastard

Recently on TV here in Korea I watched a documentary about the wildlife in the DMZ and how in a strange twist, said wildlife is thriving because of the distinct lack of people and apparently in spite of the land mines. Among the many species that are positively enjoying their existence between 2 technically warring countries is the cuckoo. The cute little bird that traditionally pops out of every clock in Switzerland on the hour is in fact a sneaky, murdering, lying bastard.

The documentary showed how the cuckoo watches, spying if you will, a roosting mother. The mother is of course of a different species to the cuckoo and when the hardworking mother has to go out for the day to hunt and gather for her brood the sneaky f'ing cuckoo nips in and drops one of its own eggs into the nest. The cuckoo egg is the same colour as the host eggs but a lot bigger and so when the chick hatches (for the retuning mother apparently can't count) it is also much bigger than the other chicks. Predictably the bigger chick then takes the, well I suppose the cuckoo's share of the food.

Not content with taking most of the food, growing bigger and disappearing (probably in the middle of the night the sneaky bastard), the chick then systematically starts evicting the other chicks from their own nest. The Mother fumbles around in the nest, apparently unaware that her chicks are being thrown to their deaths and the smug little cuckoo chick just keeps on opening its fat, greedy mouth and taking the food.

The narrator of the program actually said that the father and mother looked on bewildered at what was going on and although I admit I am no expert at bird body language I am not sure how he could claim to know that.

Anyway the summary is that cuckoos are bastards and I shall not ever purchase a cuckoo clock because they are both ugly and tacky but most of all because every hour I would see a little wooden cuckoo and it would remind me of what little shits they really are.

My kind of cuckoo clock!