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Two days in a row I swear I'd heard a Coocoo.not sure if spelling is right ? is it not to early?

I new that spell thingy was lying its CUCKOO! it can't be trusted !

You probably did as the first ones have been heard in the past week or so. They're late, like a lot of things, this year due to the cold March as you'd normally expect to hear them as early as late February.

I heard one on the 5th April this year, I've never ever heard one earlier than this.

This from the British Trust for Ornithology:

The Cuckoo is arguably the UK's best known summer visitor. Spending the winter months in Africa, Cuckoos arrive back in the UK during late April and early May, timing this arrival to match the breeding season of its host species here.

Update on the Cuckoo, I both heard and saw the cuckoo on the 15th, passed over our plots calling his head off :)

The earliest we've heard the cuckoo is April 18th but the end of April is more usual and I suspect that'll be the case this year.

Quote from: Mikeakabigman on April 18, 2013, 16:02:48
Update on the Cuckoo, I both heard and saw the cuckoo on the 15th, passed over our plots calling his head off :)

I think I see them more often than I know - they're almost raptor-shaped on the wing and I don't find them particularly easy to identify.  Haven't heard or seen one yet, but I'm sure it won't be long.

Raptor shaped, you're right, but weaker flyers, with shorter wings and longer tails. I haven't seen one in years so I can't remember exactly how the flight looks.

Cuckoos look like doves or pigeons but darker grey and with ribbed bellies and slightly longer tails.

Have a look on the RSPB website - http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/c/cuckoo/

Quote from: Obbelix on April 19, 2013, 20:25:02
Cuckoos look like doves or pigeons but darker grey and with ribbed bellies and slightly longer tails.

Have a look on the RSPB website - http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/c/cuckoo/

I've never found it particularly easy to recognize birds from their pictures, but when someone who knows points them out to me in the wild I find that very much easier because it's really not so much the colouring that you see in close-ups, for me it's all the other things like the shape and the way it moves, and if you see that first-hand it's so much easier to recognise again.

Quote from: Mikeakabigman on April 15, 2013, 19:41:46
I heard one on the 5th April this year, I've never ever heard one earlier than this.

This from the British Trust for Ornithology:

The Cuckoo is arguably the UK's best known summer visitor. Spending the winter months in Africa, Cuckoos arrive back in the UK during late April and early May, timing this arrival to match the breeding season of its host species here.

This is a nursery rhyme I remember from childhood, one of a set which taught us of the habits of migratory birds - we used to sing it to a particularly haunting tune....

Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
What do you do?
"In April I open my bill,
In May I sing night and day,
In June I change my tune.
In July away I fly,
In August away I must..."
Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

I used to hear the cuckoo very early in the morning when I lived in the Glos. countryside. I expect the sound was lost during the day, and evenings, of course, I was in the pub

L.