Helpless Hosts,Bullied Into Babysiting

　　I’ve never had a baby, but I imagine the worst part about doing so would be having to take care of it. They’re so loud and expensive and drooly and gross. I’m not interested.
　　Wouldn’t it be magnificent if I could just drop my baby in someone else’s care and never really have to worry about it again? I would be happy knowing my genes were passed on, and I’d be even happier because I didn’t have to get vomited on in the process.
　　Well, a species of bird shares my genius idea — the Great Spotted Cuckoo basically bullies the European Magpie into taking care of its young, and the magpie just lets the cuckoo do it like the pathetic weakling it is.
　　It’s all because of the cuckoo’s majesty and power.
　　Cuckoos choose magpies that they think will be good parents. They scour an area and choose the largest magpie nests. The magpies that can build the biggest nests generally have the most resources, which means they probably have the biggest territories. And birds with the biggest territories are probably the biggest and the strongest, which makes them high quality, as we all know. High quality birds make high quality parents. So the cuckoos choose the best ones then lay their eggs in the magpie nests and fly off to let the magpie take care of it.
　　You see, even though the magpie can tell the difference between its own eggs and the cuckoos eggs, it still usually sits on it and feeds the chick because if a magpie tries to strike back and throws the egg out of its nest, the cuckoo gets understandably upset.
　　“That was my baby, yo,” it says in bird language.
　　And then it rounds up its cuckoo buddies and together they wreak havoc on the magpie nest and destroy the magpie eggs.That does kind of seem like a lot of effort when the cuckoo could instead be eating or laying more eggs or resting or playing Halo and trying to outcompete its roommates.
　　So why does the cuckoo bother harassing the magpie?Well, the magpie needs to learn its place. And it works.Magpies that just accept it and raise the cuckoos’ young actually do better in the long run than magpies that try to fight back and throw the cuckoos’ eggs out of their nests.After the cuckoos ruin the magpie’s life, the magpie builds another nest and is way more likely to just give up and raise the cuckoo’s young the next time, so it wasted all that energy. And no matter what, the cuckoo gets its chick raised.And really, the cuckoos are essentially setting an example for all the other magpies who think they’re tough.