Rob was watching a nature documentary the other day that just fascinated me. It was about a certain species of cuckoo bird. This species is a type of brood parasite, which means it doesn't raise it's own young, but manipulates other species of birds into doing the work.

Here's how it goes. The female cuckoo finds a nest of another bird that has eggs in it. It pushes one of the eggs out and lays one of it's own and then flies off. The bird which owns the next returns and doesn't seem to notice that one of the eggs in the nest is significantly larger than when she left.

The cuckoo chick typically has a shorter gestation time and so hatches sooner than the other chicks. It instinctively pushes the other eggs out of the nest, or in the event that the other chicks have hatched, it pushes them out of the nest which it has no problem doing as it is so much larger. The documentary showed a father bird just watching as the cuckoo chick did that without trying to stop it.

Now the cuckoo chick has all the food to itself which it's manipulated foster parents keep on bringing. Before long the chick is larger than it's parents, but the parents still keep on feeding it.

This scenario has stuck with me strongly over the last week or so and I've pondered why. I think it's because I see similarities to my real life events as of late. I feel like my nest-life was invaded by the product of another, more powerful being that pushed other things - like common sense and ethics - aside to serve it's own purposes. This has happened numerous times in my life, and I have sometimes let that happen, ignoring my own senses in favour of the wishes of the more powerful. This last time, though, I decided to fight the illegitimate being and keep my own eggs - thoughts, values, beliefs - and I'm still fighting.

I turn the question to my friends - have you had cuckoo situations? Did you fight the foreigner or let it stay?