Cuckoo sightings on Scout Scar

Freshly opening hawkweed and bud

 A bright morning, with alto-cumulus cloud.  The cuckoo was slow to give voice but then he called, showing in unmistakeable posture in a bare tree on Scout Scout.  And flew.  Calling moments later to the south, more distantly.  For two or three hours he called from different locations.  He would fall silent, relocate and call again.  As I returned across Kendal Race Course he was still audible.
A diffuse sunlight over hoary rockrose, but the flowers only open when the sun gains strength and I was too early for them.  Soft grey flowers of mountain everlasting, in grass near the cliff edge.  And hawkweed freshly opening.  May blossom is the dominant motif on Scout Scar at the moment, and early purple orchids.

---

We locals pause  to share news of the cuckoo, where and when he has been heard.  I think he is the emblem of  spring. He is loud and insistent, yet elusive, and as numbers  plummet we know we are lucky the Scout Scar lineage has made it this spring.  And however much I learn of his lifestyle, his habits, there are unfathomable mysteries.  How many females are there on Scout Scar, I am asked.  Does he have more than one mate?  Must the female mate for each egg, or will a single mating provide her with several?  How long does he stay in Britain?  The latest I've heard a cuckoo was in Scotland on 3rd July. Since the cuckoo does not rear its own young theirs is a brief spring into summer visit.
It's ironic that everyone knows the cuckoo call (the male cuckoo, few have heard or would recognise the female.) and many have never seen a cuckoo.  Probably lots of folk have seen a distant cuckoo in a tree and not recognised it.  Today, I glimpsed a cuckoo in a bare tree and the image imprinted and lingers still in my mind's eye.