A little over two months ago I wrote about the changes in local bird populations and whether I would ever hear a Cuckoo again given their generally declining populations (numbers have dropped over 65% since the 1980’s) and the fact that I haven’t heard one for many years.
Just over a week ago I was walking with Ruby through the Yew escarpment which is a quiet and tranquil space that is mostly Yew and Beech trees. As I often do in the mornings I was listening to a podcast on a single earbud when I thought that I heard something in the birdsong that I hadn’t heard for many a year.
I scrambled to disconnect my earbud and open up the audio recording app on my phone. Here’s what I captured:
You might need to listen to that a couple of times and possibly turn the volume up but you should be able to hear a Cuckoo calling.
April has been a horrible month, but that’s for another time. Consequently I wasn’t concentrating on the world around me the way I normally would and although something in the back of my brain triggered me to listen to what I was actually hearing, I did still need to playback the audio a few times to confirm that I had actually heard what I thought I’d heard. Hearing that Cuckoo lifted my spirits that day quite a bit. On the same walk I also saw Raven, Buzzard and Red Kite, it was one of those mornings when Mother Nature was really setting out her stall.
I’ve been more attentive to the possibility of hearing the same thing again, but in some respects I wonder if I will. There is a bit of my brain that says this was a one time special for when I needed a bit of a lift, and that is it for this year. Of course I won’t stop listening for another call, and it is good to know that they are still about in the area they were when I was a child.
Thanks for reading (and listening)!