The Cuckoo – a haibun

by Jane Swanson

The hollow, timbered two-note sound of a male cuckoo chimes out amongst trees bursting with new leaves. Cuckoos are masters of trickery and masters of mimicry. They are nest-pirates who lay their eggs in nests belonging to meadow pipits and dunnocks and dupe them into raising the cuckoo chicks as their own. Cuckoo chicks are nest-wrestlers, they grapple with the host chicks and send them tumbling to their death on the ground. With their yellow-orange mouths stretched wide, the cuckoo chicks demand food with throated calls that sound like whistles, creaking gates, and flutes to mimic the calls of a brood of hungry host chicks. Why can’t these birds see what the cuckoos are doing, why do they fall for the same trick each year? Is there is a message here? What is happening in the world around us that we aren’t aware of, how are we being duped? The cuckoo calls again, this time it sounds as if he is saying ‘fools-you, fools-you.’ 

A cuckoo’s call warns
with a hollow timbered sound, 
be wary of tricksters.