First cuckoo

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Nope, nothing to do with the founding of the BBKA, I've just heard the cuckoo for the first time this year, usual place, on the hillside behing Brynmair.
This is the latest I've ever heard the first cuckoo, it's usually mid to late April - more often or not the weekend before May Day

 

[Erichalfbee]

Listening out for ours. Late too

 

[StephenT]

No Cuckoo‘s in the suburbs. I’m still waiting for the first Swifts to arrive over Ealing. It’s normally the first week of May unless jonny continental has shot them all on the way over this year.

 

[user 20297]

At a latitude of almost 57 degrees north, in The Highlands, I heard my first cuckoo a week and a half ago.

 

[Amari]

At a latitude of almost 57 degrees north, in The Highlands, I heard my frst cuckoo a week and a half ago.

Two folk in the village told me that they'd heard the cuckoo today. Spare a thought, he/she must be regretting arriving so soon.

 

[viridens]

No Cuckoo here yet, but the Skylarks are up and singing, and there is a Bittern booming in the distance somewhere. Spring is trying to spring although it is more like February at night and when the sun goes in.

 

[Antipodes]

Don't forget to post a video of the song....bonus points if you can capture footage of the bird too

 

[understanding_bees]

I remember how I thought, while I was young, that the cuckoo had a lovely sounding call. This was based on a song which was popular at the time. I have never seen an actual cuckoo, although I believe that they can be found in Australia. I now find myself wondering what is so appealing about cuckoos, and why people might perhaps like them. My thoughts are very much influenced by the behaviour of cuckoos which parasitise other bird's nests, and the cuckoo chicks which eject all of the chicks which hatch from the "adoptive" parent's eggs, leaving those chicks to die on the ground.

 

[elainemary]

Nope, nothing to do with the founding of the BBKA, I've just heard the cuckoo for the first time this year, usual place, on the hillside behing Brynmair.
This is the latest I've ever heard the first cuckoo, it's usually mid to late April - more often or not the weekend before May Day

I heard a male calling for a mate around 10 days ago. Lovely to hear. Haven’t heard it since. Bought hubby a moveable telescope for birdwatching last year and we saw 2 cuckoos across from our wood on an electric line. First time I’d seen a cuckoo.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I remember how I thought, while I was young, that the cuckoo had a lovely sounding call. This was based on a song which was popular at the time. I have never seen an actual cuckoo, although I believe that they can be found in Australia. I now find myself wondering what is so appealing about cuckoos, and why people might perhaps like them. My thoughts are very much influenced by the behaviour of cuckoos which parasitise other bird's nests, and the cuckoo chicks which eject all of the chicks which hatch from the "adoptive" parent's eggs, leaving those chicks to die on the ground.

The now word Cuckold is derived from the call. A cuckold was a man whose wife had been unfaithful to him. The associated folklore relates to its habit of laying its egg in the nest of another bird. The cuckoo chick hatches before those of the host bird, and immediately ejects all the other eggs from the nest so that it gets the undivided attention of its adopted parents.

No wonder that the two-note call of the bird was a symbol of infidelity. A result of this predatory behaviour could be a man raising another’s child as his own.

Part of the song of the Owl and the Cuckoo from Shakespeare’s play Love’s Labour’s Lost.

The cuckoo then on every tree
Mocks married men; for thus sings he, “Cuckoo”;
Cuckoo, cuckoo” – O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

In our area many years ago, the word cuckoo was also included in a term for an unwise or foolish person, I still recall my grandfather's frustrated cry of 'ti gwcw flwydd!' - 'you yearling cuckoo!' I think though that it's a term that died with his generation

 

[Ian123]

I remember how I thought, while I was young, that the cuckoo had a lovely sounding call. This was based on a song which was popular at the time. I have never seen an actual cuckoo, although I believe that they can be found in Australia. I now find myself wondering what is so appealing about cuckoos, and why people might perhaps like them. My thoughts are very much influenced by the behaviour of cuckoos which parasitise other bird's nests, and the cuckoo chicks which eject all of the chicks which hatch from the "adoptive" parent's eggs, leaving those chicks to die on the ground.

It’s just the circle of life name an animal that doesn’t eat or predate some other thing along the way.

 

[Martin Bee]

My first cuckoo heard this year was last Monday in the Elan Valley

 

[Cuckmere couple]

heard our first cuckoo two weeks ago here in east sussex

 

[Newbeeneil]

heard our first cuckoo two weeks ago here in east sussex

Mine was the same in West Sussex.

 

[Newbeeneil]

I heard a male calling for a mate around 10 days ago. Lovely to hear. Haven’t heard it since. Bought hubby a moveable telescope for birdwatching last year and we saw 2 cuckoos across from our wood on an electric line. First time I’d seen a cuckoo.

My wife and I watched 2 male cuckoos fighting over a female in a large ash tree about 10years ago. We had to look it up as we had never seen one before ( or since to be honest)

 

[viridens]

In our area many years ago, the word cuckoo was also included in a term for an unwise or foolish person, I still recall my grandfather's frustrated cry of 'ti gwcw flwydd!' - 'you yearling cuckoo!' I think though that it's a term that died with his generation

I had a junior school teacher who sent misbehaving children to stand in "Cuckoo corner".

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

We have a song in Wales to greet the first cuckoo, but the most well known cuckoo song (the cuckoo dance) is well known by all, well the music if not the lyrics

 

[Antipodes]

We have a small settlement or "rural locality" here in Tasmania called Cuckoo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo,_Tasmania

 

[pargyle]

We have a song in Wales to greet the first cuckoo, but the most well known cuckoo song (the cuckoo dance) is well known by all, well the music if not the lyrics

Your knowledge of the obscure is beyond panegyric (and coming from someone who seems to collect useless obscure information and mentally store it to the detriment of remembering what I went upstairs for this is epenetic)