The female cuckoo is far from a tradwife. She shows no signs of “toxic feminity” or internalized sexism, having no need to conform to rigid female gender roles due to social pressure. The female cuckoo lives the most fulfilling life of all birds while maintaining her autonomy and independence.

She does this by dropping her eggs in the nests of other species of bird, who then raise the cuckoo. The young cuckoo is the most fluid of all species of birds. While it is young, it may identify as a dunnock, a meadow pipit, a reed warbler or whichever species feeds it. It finally chooses its identity as a cuckoo after about two years when it mates in a homospecies manner with another cuckoo. After mating, it drops its egg in the nest of another bird species, and the cycle starts again.

I will end with a nursery rhyme:

Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,

Apple seed and apple thorn,

Wire, briar, limber lock,

Three geese in a flock.

One flew east,

And one flew west,

And one flew over,

The cuckoo’s nest.