There are many birds widely referenced in popular culture today, whether as the name of a sports team or as the origin of a common saying – “Look at you, you ugly duck”. But few of them have the linguistic range of the cuckoo.
The name can evoke a delirious state of mind (cuckoo) and a shameful romantic betrayal (cuckold). It is also a type of clock, a symbol of spring’s arrival, a beloved breakfast cereal mascot, and the inspiration behind a recently released independent horror film (a very strong film, in this reporter’s opinion).
Cynthia Chris, professor of Media Culture at Staten Island College, City University of New York, has studied for a long time how people view animals like the cuckoo. In her new book with the same name The Cuckoo, which was released in paper this month, she explains in detail the broad cultural and scientific history of this bird. Gizmodo spoke to Chris about why she decided to address the cuckoo’s legacy, the origin of the cuckold, and what the future might hold for everyone’s favorite feathery brood parasite. The following conversation was edited and condensed for clarity.
Ed Cara, Gizmodo: This is the second book you’ve written about a specific animal, after 2021’s Crab. What prompted you to take a close look at the cuckoo in particular?
Chris: The two books came from very different starting points for me. I had been following Reaktion’s Animal series for a long time and was eager to write for it. My academic work has long focused on the history of nature films and representations of human-animal interactions in film and television, and I knew Reaktion produced beautiful books for great authors. But every time I thought about what animal I wanted to write about, I found they had already published a volume on that creature. Horse? Done. Donkey? Done. Squid? Done.
Then my partner and I traveled to Costa Rica and stayed in a remote place on the Osa Peninsula, on the Atlantic coast. On the first night, I was walking alone on the beach, when suddenly I felt the ground beneath my feet moving. I kneeled down and realized I was surrounded by thousands of tiny hermit crabs that were emerging from the waves to seek shelter on the beach all night. And I thought: What amazing creatures! Who are they, what is their life like? We were off the grid, without Wi-Fi, but I made a note to see if the Animal series already included a book on crabs. It didn’t, so I contacted Jonathan Burt, the series editor and a key voice in animal studies, to pitch the idea. He asked me to submit a proposal, it was accepted, and Crab was published in 2021.
“We might be better off being curious about animal life rather than being moral about it.”
I enjoyed researching and writing this book so much that I immediately inquired whether Reaktion was interested in another contribution from me. I hadn’t settled on my “next animal” yet, but the editor I had worked with suggested a few. And one of them was the cuckoo. I was initially hesitant – while we have yellow-billed and black-billed cuckoos in the US, they are not very common backyard birds and are quite elusive. I had never seen one before, let alone the common cuckoo, which breeds in the UK and most of Europe, the bird Reaktion was really interested in. But I started to get to know the cuckoo, and I couldn’t resist: a wonderful bird, a common figure in myths, folktales, and legends.
Gizmodo: In your opinion, what makes these birds so enduring and widely referenced across many contexts, from cuckoldry to cuckoo clocks, throughout human culture?
Chris: It seems that one of the cuckoo’s behaviors is the source of its charm, while another behavior is the source of its most notorious reputation. The common cuckoo migrates long distances every year, from its wintering grounds in central Africa to breeding grounds in the UK and Europe (or from South and Southeast Asia to Russia and other northern places). The British Trust for Ornithology has an amazing project tracking cuckoos, where you can follow the movements of a few tagged birds during their migration. It has long been announced that their arrival signals the welcome of spring. This sign is often auditory, as the common cuckoo is very good at staying out of sight. But the male’s two-tone call (“cu-coo”) is unmistakable, and during the breeding season, they call frequently. Since their migration timing is reliably the same every year, it’s no wonder that Bavarian clockmakers mimicked their call for their famous clocks – and it didn’t hurt that recreating the tones with a mechanical bellows was much easier than replicating the more elaborate calls of roosters, sandpipers, or nightingales.
“The common cuckoo population is still large, but declining, as are some regular host bird species. Climate change is making their migration more challenging.”
But there’s another side to the cuckoo’s life cycle that is a big part of cuckoo lore, one that humans have found disturbing. The common cuckoo is a obligate brood parasite. After mating – which requires only a brief encounter – the male goes off in search of his next mating opportunity, and the female lays an egg in another bird’s nest when it’s unattended. This nest usually belongs to a much smaller bird, like a warbler or pipit, whose egg happens to resemble the cuckoo’s egg. The host birds will incubate the egg as if it were their own. The cuckoo’s egg usually hatches first, and the cuckoo chick will force the unhatched egg or newly hatched chicks out of the nest. Being the only survivor, the cuckoo is in a great position to demand food to satiate its massive appetite. They grow quickly and soon tower over their much smaller hosts, who continue to raise the cuckoos as if they were their own offspring. Eventually, of course, the cuckoo leaves the nest and continues to live the life of a cuckoo. But the hosts have lost their nest, and may not have the opportunity to breed again until the next year.
The word “cuckold” is derived from the word “cuckoo”, and it has been circulated by many writers from Chaucer and Shakespeare to James Joyce to mock men whose wives may bear a child by another man. This metaphor – the mysterious pregnancy, or the sudden appearance of an unknown offspring – has become material for any number of horror tales, such as John Windham’s 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos, which was turned into films titled Village of the Damned in 1960 and again in 1995, and back to its original title as a TV series two years ago. The Barn (2022) and The Cuckoo (2024) also draw inspiration from brood parasite.
Gizmodo: What are your thoughts on breeding strategies of the cuckoo inspiring horror?
Chris: The truth is, the animal kingdom creates new life in several ways, and the cuckoo is just one of them, though some people might find it unsettling. It seems absurd to me to judge the reproductive strategies of a non-human animal, and the disgust engendered by brood parasitism says more about us than it does about them. We might be better off being curious about animal life rather than being moral about it.
Gizmodo: How are the birds themselves doing? Are there any causes for concern about the future of cuckoos, especially our most famous common cuckoos?
Chris: It’s complex. BTO surveys suggest that common cuckoo numbers are still large, but declining, as with some regular host bird species. Climate change is making their migration more challenging – wildfires in Spain make it harder for them to find rest and food along the way; the Ghadames Desert is expanding, meaning migratory birds have to fly further over dry and sparse lands with few fueling stops. As for the larger cuckoo family, Cuculidae, which includes the cuckoo, koel, and coucal, there are definitely species listed as threatened or endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), largely due to habitat loss in Sri Lanka, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Laos, and elsewhere. A decade ago, the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the western yellow-billed cuckoo threatened with extinction, and took steps to protect some of its habitat. These are all reminders of how humans are deteriorating the environment on which all animals – non-human and human alike – depend.
Gizmodo: Is there anything else you’d like to say to potential readers?
Chris: I hope readers interested in animals of all kinds take a look at The Cuckoo and other books in the fantastic Animal series by Reaktion – there are over a hundred printed volumes available!
The Cuckoo was published by Reaktion Books and is distributed through the University of Chicago Press, and is now available for purchase as an e-book or in print.
