Today during the coffee break (fika) the new German girls told me about the life cycle of cuckoos. I was talking about how great it is that there are real cuckoos here, and Anna interjected darkly: "you know they don't build their own nests, right?" Well no, I suppose I didn't know that, where do they lay their eggs? "The parents will lay their egg in the nest of another bird and then fly away, so the other bird takes care of the baby cuckoo thinking it's their own. The baby cuckoos are born so strong that they will push the other babies out of the nest and then they get all of the food. Soon the baby cuckoo will be much larger than the birds who are feeding it." OH. Oh...
Tord, the local guy who works with me in the tomato house, added that it's Swedish superstition that if you hear a cuckoo calling from the south it means you are about to die. Good thing all we have to our south is Lake Mälaren. There WAS an osprey fishing in it yesterday, but I don't think that means I'm about to die...
I need natural history books about Sweden, and Helene from Stockholm promised she'll fetch me some of hers when she goes home this weekend. I hope there are more charming life cycles than that of the cuckoo in these forests...
those damned cuckoo clocks, my parents have about 12 of them. your hosts look so kind and warmhearted! ps karen rocks-
ReplyDeleteI hope they know they should never be placed on the south end of a house, that could theoretically tamper with a lot of people's destinies.
ReplyDeletecuckoo for cocoa puffs :D
ReplyDeletehttp://www.desertusa.com/road.html
ReplyDeleteFound this out today and thought it was interesting how much Sweden and Tucson tie into each other - Roadrunners, the Desert Cuckoo