BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?

Subject: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 17 May 07 - 08:08 AM

Heard my first cuckoo in ages last night. In the forest not far from Tintern. Was a nice sound, shame they are not such nice characters.

But... Have you heard?

Or what bird have you seen/heard for the first time in ages.

EWIS

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: GUEST,Mingulay at work
Date: 17 May 07 - 08:34 AM

Haven't heard a cuckoo yet, normally get one or two around the lake. But they might have been drowned out by the flocks of parakeets that are driving all the native species out. Sometimes wonder if this is West London or the Aussie bush!

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: billybob
Date: 17 May 07 - 08:40 AM

Our couckoo is back on the Essex coast, heard it 10 days ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 17 May 07 - 09:24 AM

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Cook!

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 17 May 07 - 09:26 AM

There's green parrot type things near us too. My uncle (a farmer) thought maybe his milk was off the first time he saw them sitting on his roof. He couldn't believe his eyes...

Father-in-law had a very large eagle hawk sitting on top of his bird bath (what bird bath - it was gimongous bird), complete with the tethers that gave it away as being an escapee bird from a local falconer/or whatever they are called. As he couldn't get (wouldn't get) close to it, he just called the police and reported the sighting. Turned out it had already been reported missing.

A few months ago, I'm pretty sure I saw a vulture sitting on top of a motorway sign on the M4. Did a double take then, was worrying that maybe it was a sign (hahhahaha).

But seriously, from a lot of people being unresponsible, or having bad luck at keeping these species in there's now a load of odd looking birds (different from saturday night ones) flying about.

I've also spotted a panther in the woods near us too. Crazy! (We're in the UK - and anything larger than a hefty ould tom cat is rather alarming).

Ewis

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 17 May 07 - 09:27 AM

Cuck who?

;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Hawker
Date: 17 May 07 - 09:40 AM

Heard my first Cuckoo this year at Fox & Hounds last saturday
Cheers, Lucy

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 17 May 07 - 10:19 AM

heard cuckoos on the Elbe River in Germany several times. I forget the year.

Had one in the grounds of a hotel in Clare. year 2000

Saw an American cuckoo at Powell Gardens near Kansas City. American cuckoos go don't say "cuckoo," they just go "gluck." They raise their own young, though, so are upright citizens.

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 17 May 07 - 12:18 PM

Only that rather iffy sounding one in the Archers about three weeks ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Bee
Date: 17 May 07 - 12:36 PM

No cuckoos here, but a pair of my favourite Pileated Woodpeckers went shrieking through the yard a few days ago.

And would you UK types please come and take your damn Starlings home! I had a few Swallows around for a few years, but last year, along came a flock of Starlings and there's nary sign of Swallows this spring, just more Starlings. I've disliked them ever since I watched them tipping baby Barn Swallows out of their nests so they could move in themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: GUEST,patty o'dawes
Date: 17 May 07 - 12:40 PM

Was in South London a month ago and couldn't belive the flocks of parakeets flying home at roosting time. Have they eaten all your sparrows too?

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Bee
Date: 17 May 07 - 12:49 PM

Okay, do you really have flocks of parakeets flying about in the UK, or are you all mistaking various big spring-feathered Finches for parrots (none of whom, parrots or finches, as far as I know, eat sparrows)?

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 17 May 07 - 12:58 PM

Not only have we (in Kinvara, Galway) had cuckoos - we've had a fleadh (festival to you) to celebrate its arrival! Heard first local one about third week of April and have heard one most days since. I say "local" becuase about a week before that I heard one - in the south of France! He took a bit longer than Ryanair to get here.

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: MBSLynne
Date: 17 May 07 - 01:27 PM

Heard it first on May 2nd which is late around here. It's usually about St George's Day, though last year it was April 19th. Usually hearing it all day every day by now but I've only heard it three or four times this year.

I saw a reed bunting in our garden a couple of weeks ago which I'd never seen before and there were two goldfinches on the bird table. They haven't been so close to the house before. I also saw a firecrest. We used to have an opencast over the back but now it's gone and the site has been landscaped with walks, lakes, trees etc. The increase in birds has been incredible

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 17 May 07 - 02:16 PM

Haven't knowingly heard a cucko since my grandma got rid of the clock.
For many years I thought the noise woodpigeons make was a cuckoo. Currently there are coiple of woodpigeons that sit on the tv aerial ans bill and coo down the chimney.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 May 07 - 02:42 PM

I haven't heard our cuckoos here in Maine this season, though the Baltimore orioles, cardinals, and rose-breasted grosbeaks have joined in song alongside the American goldfinches, purple finches and marsh wrens, Heard a loon overhead this morning, too.

The cuckoos will be back when the weather warms a bit.

maeve

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Arnie
Date: 17 May 07 - 03:11 PM

Cuckoos have declined drastically in the UK in recent years and it has now been suggested that the harbinger of Spring should be the chiffchaff, which is on the increase and arrives in April. Pretty unmissable as well, as it's song is the same as it's name, eponymous I think the word might be. The other bird on the increase in the UK is the buzzard. Used to be a bird of Wales and the West Country, but I saw one in Kent last week and have heard of them starting to nest in the South East. Have also seen a big cat in Kent a few years ago when driving back from the folk club - and yes, I was still sober. Looked like a panther as it hit the road in front of my car and bounced off into the bushes at the roadside - I can still see it's big green eyes caught in the headlights - fair took me breath away!

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: GUEST,paty o'dawes
Date: 17 May 07 - 03:25 PM

Bee - London parakeets are alive and well.

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: maeve
Date: 17 May 07 - 10:16 PM

Cuckoo ate my cookie... It was I who posted at 2:42 today!

maeve

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Bee
Date: 18 May 07 - 07:33 AM

Thanks, Patty - I had no idea!

Our thrushes are back, singing away in the evenings - my favourite Spring birdsong.

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: MBSLynne
Date: 18 May 07 - 08:14 AM

Yes we often have buzzards over our garden these days when you never saw one ten years ago. I always know to look up when I hear that mornful, lost-soul mewing. Hard to hear anything further away because due to the lakes and ponds at the back which weren't there before, there is a continual clamour of geese.

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: GUEST,leeenia
Date: 18 May 07 - 11:15 AM

Arnie, you should inform the authorities of your sighting of a big cat. Unless you live in a remote area, it has probably been dumped by somebody who thought a big cat would make a good pet. Wrong!

Often such animals have had their claws removed and their teeth filed. They starve when abandoned.

(Learned this from the Department of Conservation.)

The fact that it crossed the road when your vehicle was within hearing distance supports the idea that it lacks the skills of a wild animal.

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 07 - 11:54 AM

I heard a cuckoo on Saturday morning at Upton festival (May 5). First one for a few years.

Big Bird on a road sign could have been a Red Kite. Theys are spreading too, I saw one by the M4 near Reading last year.

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Arnie
Date: 18 May 07 - 12:19 PM

Leeenia - the big cat I saw was near an owl sanctuary - Many Hoots nr. Deal in Kent, and the owner used to regularly report more than one big cat prowling around the perimeter fence. He feeds his owls on day-old chicks, and apparently the smell attracts the big cats. The one I nearly ran into was therefore probably not alone in this area. That was about 3 or 4 yrs ago and there have been other sightings since, so it looks like they are survivors and possibly breeding.

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 07 - 12:33 PM

I heard a cuckoo for the first time in Southern France a few years ago. It was around Easter and the sound was coming from the vineyard. It took me some time to convince my daughter it wasn't someone's clock.

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 07 - 12:34 PM

oops - that was me, dianavan.

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Sue the Borderer
Date: 18 May 07 - 04:40 PM

Heard my first cuckoo of the year at 5.15am on 1st May as we (Rattlejag Morris) made our way up Castle Hill, Laxton in Nottinghamshire, to 'Dance Up the Sun' on May Morning. It serenaded us all the way. Magical!!

Sue

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: mouldy
Date: 19 May 07 - 10:42 AM

We used to have a cuckoo regularly in our end of our village, at the bottom end of North Yorks, but I haven't heard one for a year or two. One of my friends at the other end of the village heard one a week or two back.

However, another friend in a nearby village has had one in a tree in her garden for the last couple of weeks, and she's about to go strangle it, as it's up and shouting at sparrow-fart every morning. It has pigeons as accompanists. (She hasn't said anything about a woodpecker acting as drummer this year!)

Andrea

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 20 May 07 - 06:57 AM

Arnie, I agree with you regarding the decline of the Cuckoo, here in the north of Ireland it is all of 20 years ago from I heard that bird, also heard the Chiffchaff this morning again they have been around for the past couple of weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Schantieman
Date: 21 May 07 - 05:57 AM

Red kites were released in the ?Cotswolds a year or three ago in an attept to reintroduce them into England. Looks like it's working - I often see them on the M40 and elsewhere. Great birds. Buzzards too. I remember seeing oodles of them in the Gower many years ago and also in the Lakes, but they're common in the Shriopshire Hills and elsewhere now.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Jos
Date: 21 May 07 - 06:36 AM

Red Kites were introduced in the Chilterns in the 1990s. There are lots near Stokenchurch, more or less where the M40 cuts through, and are spreading from there to other parts of Oxfordshire and Berkshire.

http://www.chilternsaonb.org/caring/red_kites_reintroduction.html

and to see them:

http://www.chilternsaonb.org/caring/red_kites_nestwatch.html

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Edmond
Date: 21 May 07 - 10:48 AM

Heard a cuckoo in Desborough (Northants) on Saturday last.

Subject: RE: BS: Cuckoo - have you heard?
From: Nick
Date: 21 May 07 - 11:48 AM

Lots of Kites here in North Yorkshire after the were introduced to Harewood House and have them seen one flying over Allerthorpe golf course (nr Pocklington) as I believe they are also found around there.

Have heard a cuckoo this year but can't put a date on it. I occasionally see one too. More heard than seen I reckon