THE PALLID CUCKOO AND THE MOBILE PHONE.

I have elected myself, or to rephrase that a little, appointed myself the champion of the Pallid Cuckoo.

This sorrowful looking bird has been unfairly treated by the big manufactures of the telephone.  It has been taken advantage of and now as more and more phones, are becoming mobile it's possible that this bird could become another statistic of the extinct, creatures of the universe.

When one thinks of all the suing, that goes on today and the millions of dollars that are awarded for affronts and compensation, I am sure given an opportunity in court, a multimillion dollar settlement could be won on behalf of this bird, from the makers of the cellular phone.  If this course of action was taken up and was successful it would then be possible to buy a very large tract of land or maybe several smaller blocks where it would be illegal to take one of these yuppie communicators.

Normally this dowdy looking bird sits alone on a branch of a tree. Occasionally it will move to catch a caterpillar, from a near by spot and in doing so helps nature, balance life in the bush.  Because the cuckoo lays its eggs, in other birds nests it is a very unpopular with other species of birds.  Consequently it is often seen by those of us who know how to find it, being harassed by all manner of other bird species.  That must be one of the reasons it never puts on an appearance of being happy or cheerful, and probably the main reason it's plumage is unattractive.  Mind you because it feathers are so lacklustre, humans never normally see this bird, unless they are specifically looking for it.

This bird does have one other very interesting characteristic, that most other living creatures don't have.  That is apart from the main reason for this writing.  That is, it must have premeditated sex with it's partner's! Now as observant as I try to be in the bush I have never never seen two of these birds together.  In fact I have never seen two of these birds with in one hundred meters, of each other.  What we do know about this bird, which is mentioned briefly above is that it lays its eggs in other birds nests and that the unwitting host bird, incubates and rears the young.  In life generally creatures go through a wooing ritual, before making homes and mating and then raising the offspring of what the former has produced.  Our Cuckoo is the exception though.  It can't go through that normal process, as it relies on another to do the building of the nest and the nurturing of the fledglings.  This could be another reason why the bird looks so sad I guess.  So theory has it, although the  theory is not proved because know one knows for sure, that it just copulates with abandon when ever it comes across another cuckoo of the opposite sex and the same species.  Just in case there is a suitable nest ready for the laying of an egg.  Some time in the future when more observations and consequently more knowledge is gained it is likely I will have to write some more on this specific characteristic of the Pallid Cuckoo but for now I must return to the thrust, of the reason for this piece as I seem to have digressed from the purpose in hand.

Now that you are aware that there is such a bird as a Pallid Cuckoo, let me reveal to you it's method of communication.  The best way to describe this uttering is to imagine you are in the bush or treed area in a town. You are relaxed, one with nature, then disturbed because someone else must be near you.  You instinctively know this, because you heard a mobile phone, ring.  At the very least you are very sure you heard one of those portable communication marvels of the century ring.  Ninety nine percent sure with the slimmest of doubt, because it only rang once, and you are sure you can't hear anyone talking.  Truth is stranger that all the stories that I could produce but the reality is that there is almost a ninety nine, point nine percent chance that what you heard, was the Pallid Cuckoo.

Do I have permission to digress just a little again?  Imagine if you can, an executive or perhaps a salesman slipping away confidently for a brief hour from the routine of work.  He's / She is going to have no problems creating a break from routine, because this person has a mobile phone. Confidently into the bush this eloper of work drives, parks the vehicle, winds down the window, turns up the volume of the phone and then proceeds to do whatever the purpose, nature distracted him/her from the normal routine of earning a living.  Maybe twenty meters from the mode of transport, that brought this unsuspecting truant to this paradise from toil, he/she hears the phone ring, once!  What I omitted to mention before was that our, by now familiar, Pallid Cuckoo, do is answer each others calls, not phones.  So back to the escape artist.  The phone rings again, once, but this time in another direction. Is someone else in the bush too with a mobile, or has some person stolen the phone and moved off.  No wonder people who carry these implements suffer unexplainable stress at times.

Now, being you have read this far it is reasonable to assume that at least you have found some interest, in the preamble so far.  If you were to apply a little deduction and read between the lines, in the last digression, I think you would come to a similar conclusion that I have, in that the effect the mobile phone, potentially has on our elusive Cuckoo, could in time end this species, existence on our planet.  I not being an executive or salesman, do however plead guilty to owning and operating a mobile phone.  I am also guilty of keeping that phone in and in close vicinity to the bush.  I won't deny that it is turned on most of the time and I can vouch, it is many times I have started back to answer it's ringing from where ever I might be, and realized it was a cuckoo calling.  If there were a hundred fold of me, in the bush, and in time there well could be, the phones would out number the Cuckoos.  If, as I have pertained to that a human can attempt to answer a Cuckoo, imagine what would happen if the Cuckoo tried to answer the mobile phone.  Worse still would be if the Cuckoo, found the phone more attractive, than its own species and paid more attention to the phone rather than a potential mate!?  Definitely another endangered species coming up.  Hence the need for to act now before it's to late.