They’ll lay regardless of if the host is there or not. They always lay in the afternoon and try to coincide it with the hosts being away from the nest, but it doesn’t always happen. As they glide to the nest, pipits especially will rise up and attack the female cuckoo with some ferocity, drawing feathers from the head of the bird. If you ever find a nest with a cuckoos egg in, look around the outside of the nest, there’s sometimes the odd cuckoo feather lying there if it was recent. I’ve watched cuckoos flying about and they’re always accompanied by a few small noisy birds. Some pipits almost