Make no mistake, despite its beautiful characteristic ‘Cuckoo’ sounding chant and its promises to do more the following week, this bird does not forgive. It doesn’t bother building a nest. It does not even bother taking care of its young. Instead this sneaky creature lays its eggs in another bird’s nest, leaving them the burden of looking after its offspring, or in your case, the project report.

Once the Cuckoo’s egg hatches, the chick will instinctively throw out the remaining eggs from the nest, all to ensure it will receive enough food. Indeed the Cuckoo can grow up to 5 times as large as its adoptive parents, so it will need all the food it can get.

Like nature though, there are a couple of defense mechanisms you can adopt to protect yourself from these parasites. If the Cuckoo is noticed laying its egg, the parents will abandon the nest, effectively abandoning him to starve. In the real world this would translate to kicking someone out of the group. Alternatively, they could call a fox or a teacher which are known to eat 40% of Cuckoos before they reach adulthood or receive their final grade.

Anyways, if there’s one thing to learn here, it’s that you won’t get rid of a Cuckoo without breaking some eggs.