(cuckoo by Edmund Fellowes)
I’ve been thinking I might hear a cuckoo for the past few days, and yesterday (sunday), I decided to wear a GoPro camera during my early morning walk – just on the offchance that I might hear one, and would be able to record it for you. Imagine how excited I was when I managed to do just that, having turned the camera on and walked for 40 minutes! So here’s me hearing this spring’s first cuckoo when I was out walking yesterday. If you can hear me sounding rather breathy, it’s because I’m waving my arms around like a loon and silently cheering. I made even more unwelcome noise when I returned home and woke up Tom with my exciting first cuckoo news.
Who can deny that Spring is here when they hear that sound? When those familiar notes stop me in my walking tracks, I of course call to mind the travails of the wee meadow pipits, whose display flights I’ve been so enjoying over the past fortnight, and who will soon be feeding the outsized interloper in their nests. But mostly I marvel at the truly remarkable journey of this “red-listed” summer migrant from central Africa, crossing the Sahara in a continuous flight of over 50 hours, all the way to to my part of central Scotland.
Do you know this piece by Delius?
KDD & Co 
that picture of cuckoo is beautiful! Common cuckoo I guess after listening to the audio.
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Marvellous Kate – thank you so much for the peace and tranquility your words, video and Delius have brought me this morning. I heard our first cuckoo late on last week. Magical moments to cherish. X
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Kate, your knowledge about so many things, amazes me… thanks so much for this beautiful post…
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Sumer is icumen in! (Which is odd because it’s really a song about spring). Here it’s distinctly autumnal but the magpies were carolling and the kookaburras kicking up a racket this morning.
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I have heard what may have been a cuckoo here in Edinburgh. Spring is here and the blossoms on the cherry opposite are about to burst forth, the red early leaves and buds have the occasional pink bit.
I loved seeing the boys on their wanders. Labs are such happy dogs when out walking.
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Oh how wonderful for you, Kate!
I suppose the south coast of the UK had cuckoos flying over a week or more ago. Alas, even in these now quieter days one didn’t alight here; at least not when I was out (permitted for exercise.)
We are inner-city dwellers, however there is a cemetery nearby, now exceedingly popular for permitted exercise and dog walking, where Spring has been springing since before Lockdown. The trees are coming into leaf and blossom, there have been snowdrops, crocuses, primroses and now bluebells. There are various birds, including wrens, a charm of goldfinches, sparrows, starlings and various tits, plus the ubiquitous gulls, pigeons (feral, wood and collared dove), magpies and crows – all of which we can hear now loud and clear. Then there are the grey squirrels, which run up hopefully, and mug you for nuts should you try sitting a while. All in all, it’s a pretty lively place to visit.
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Thank you! I love birds, the sight and sound of them and the fascinating behaviors as they go about their lives … but living in the U.S., I’d never before heard a real cuckoo bird. And I’m shocked to find that they actually do sound like the cuckoo of a cuckoo clock! So many things travel away from their inspiration on the journey over to American culture, and I’d just always assumed that real cuckoos wouldn’t sound at all the clock in my youth, from grandmother’s house – what a pleasure and thrill to hear a real, living cuckoo and adjust my own assumptions accordingly! And, for a moment I was back at grandmother’s, too. A double joy. Thank you!
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Oh Kate, what a joy this morning! A few years ago I was walking in the evening on Inishmore, in Ireland – and heard a cuckoo for the first time, and unmistakable call even to us, living in Western Canada, not on a cuckoo route. Your post took me right back to the joy I felt that day.
I’m really enjoying your posts every morning, thank you.
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No cuckoos in my area these dyas, but I do love the piece by Delius and also Eric Coates ‘Springtime in Angus’ from the Three Elizabeths Suite
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Oh my, I didn’t know how much I needed to see and hear this. Thank you for sharing this exquisite beauty and peaceful balm. Delius is one of my favourite composers, and this piece reminds me of my first (and only) cuckoo. I was visiting friends in the small village of Beccles, in Suffolk, and in the back yard was a tree in which nested a cuckoo. Our weary world needs more of this right now.
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I have never seen a cuckoo. I’m going to look in my field guide to see if they are in my section of the northeast.
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What a beautiful bird. I had never seen one. They aren’t here in NW of states.
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As a child we learnt the following jingle: The cuckoo comes in April, sings its’ song in May, whistles a tune in the middle of June, and then it flies away!
Loved your ‘cuckoo’ post. I wonder when ‘cuckoo’ became a synonym for ‘a little crazy’?
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Oh Kate! How wonderful. Love tracking the seasons through migrations and the emergence of flora. All a bit different now with my recent move to Florida! Patterns can be found nonetheless. Be well xx
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Frederick Delius music – this is so beautiful. Thank you!
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Thank you so much for this! It’s like having a little slice of Scotland here with me in Michigan!
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Thank you for your efforts it was splendid
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Thanks for your post Kate. I look forward to it every day. Loved the two recordings and seeing the dogs as well.
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We don’t get cuckoos here in the western part of the United States, my only time to hear them was on a trip to Scotland and what a treat to hear this now! And I also say thank you so much for your daily posts, a wonderful way to start the day in these uncertain and worrisome times.
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Gorgeous..! Both. But I was walking that path with you & the dogs and could smell the air & land too… How lovely for them to have all that freedom. As mine did. Poor town dogs, desperate to smell pavements for each other & often not even allowed that…
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How fun to include the video! I am keeping my eye out for a local WOODPECKER. I’ve heard it several times, but have yet to catch a glimpse…otherwise, it’s robins all the way down.
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Good morning,
Another beautiful post, thank you. In these times of uncertainty I was heartened to notice that the date of your linked ,Garden Days , post from 2014 is April 19th and in it you mention hearing the first cuckoo.
of spring And here we are six years later, on April 20th 2020 your post is dedicated to hearing the first cuckoo of spring.
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Yes – I only noticed that myself this morning after publishing the post! Clearly our cuckoos are very regular in their habits!
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So loved this post. Thank you for putting it together. The pictures and music so uplifting.
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Your post and go-pro video peaked my interest into the cuckoo bird, and I studied up on them. Very interesting bird! A mimic.
When I get some time I’m going to do further research as to what my area has that would be considered similar.
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What a lovely way to start my day! Thank you!
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Oh thank you, what a wonderful triumph of hope over adversity. Swallows in Berkshire and Sheffield I’m told. Xx
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Cuckoo heard for two weeks here in beautiful Hampshire
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Here in the North East (Weardale) we do still hear cuckoos in the Summer. I’ve not heard any yet, but I’ll keep my ears open and let you know. xxx
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My soul is enriched! Many thanks, Kate.
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Wonderful – thank you for that amazing sound – so rarely heard in the Surrey suburbs!
I’ve just finished making Doocot in the sumptuous Uist Dile Wool – and am thrilled with it!
Enjoy the Summer months to come, and stay safe and well.
Diane
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Lovely! I thought I was recognising our beautiful local Derbyshire landscapes, then I saw The Barley Mow, Kirk Ireton, followed by The Miners Standard in Brassington – just a mile or so away.
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We only really hear cuckoos when we visit Scotland these days- not obviously in our part of Cornwall anymore. However, when we visit the north island of New Zealand we often find ourselves camped under a tree filled with juvenile shining cuckoos, who have a very distinctive call, albeit different to our native UK cuckoo. I love listening to them.
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So rare to hear one these days, so sad. But on hearing, how wonderful! Thank you for sharing this with us.
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How wonderful! We don’t hear cuckoos very often in this part of Derbyshire, so it’s lovely hearing your recording. Just want to say thank you for the daily posts as well, I find myself looking forward to them. Always a pleasure!
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Shame cuckoos seem to have disappeared from this part of Dorset, they were two a penny when I was a child (a very long time ago!). Love Delius, one of my favourite composers.
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Lovely to here the first cuckoo thank you. I miss this living down in Newcastle. As a Munro ist I have many happy memories of being woken very early in my tent by the cuckoo.
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Lovely to hear a cuckoo, we don’t seem to get them here on the coast of Devon, but plenty of very noisy herring gulls looking for nesting sites on local roofs, besides blackbirds, goldfinches, sparrows, dunnocks, blue tits, great tits and chaffinches regularly in the garden, and of course the ever present pigeons!
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Sadly couldn’t access your recording! Vivienne
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Maybe you need to look at your settings or is sound on mute?
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Thank you so much for your daily posts. I had just returned from my early morning walk and so enjoyed listening to the cuckoo and Delius as I ate my breakfast.
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Despite so much uncertainty in the world just now its comforting to know that Spring still unfolds in all her glory. I find such solace as I walk and hear, see, and smell Spring…. Haven’t heard a Cuckoo yet, that’s magical. I’m in Norfolk so maybe they arrive later, not sure. XxViv
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I haven’t heard our cuckoo for some time, but the neighbourhood woodpecker has clearly been heard several times a day.
With the increased silence, now that this small town is still in “intelligent lockdown”, the sound of birds is more clearly than ever.
The seagulls are ever-present and my next hobby is going to defend my flower pots against the hungry house sparrows – they are actually not doing well here currently, so I will just talk to them sternly and let them have the seeds.
Next time you hear the cuckoo please say hello from me. I miss them around here.
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So thrilled to hear your recording! We have no cuckoos in the Pacific Northwest, so a live, non-commercial recording of their song seems more than magical to me.
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Thank you Kate, the music is beautiful and I loved the virtual tour and walk around your local landscape – lots of memories as we were in this area a few weeks ago experiencing very different weather in the aftermath of Storm Dennis! So good to hear the cuckoo; they are a rarity these days in more intensively farmed areas like mine. I am really enjoying listening to birdsong this spring; we have wren, blackbird, dunnock providing a chorus in my garden and local woods, although I’m finding the toots, gutteral clicks and general mimicry of the starling the one of the most intriguing. Thank you again!
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So fine ! I’m happy every spring when i hear the first “coucou!” like when i see the first swallow !
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Helen
Gorgeous, love all you and Tom’s letters etc. here in Sydney we are going into winter which is just colder than our summer but not as spectacular as your part of the world. We have our lovely harbor and beaches but it’s a drive to the countryside.
Always look forward to your e-mails.
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Here on the Norfolk/Suffolk border I heard my first cuckoo on Wednesday – such a very welcome and reassuring sound and earlier than last year I think.
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Beautiful bird.
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I live in Sydney, where we have cuckoos that give the classic coo-koo call, but also channel-billed cuckoos, which have a raucous shrieking squawk similar to how I imagine a pterodactyl would sound. They call at all hours of the day and night and sound quite unhinged!
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Just lovely – this spring does seem to be giving us some lovely treats in the west of Scotland despite the prevailing gloom.
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