In Europe, the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) is the most common and most studied brood parasite (Birkhead et al., 2011;Brooke & Davies, 1987;Esposito et al., 2022;Moksnes et al., 1991). The parasitic strategy of the cuckoo is very complex, with arms races developed with multiple host species. The parasitic event itself is very fast, cryptic, and planned in the period before incubation and after the first host eggs have been laid (Hamilton et al., 1965;Payne et al., 2005;Mann, 2017). The newly hatched cuckoo chick either