Budding whitebeam on Scout Scar 'He was but as the cuckoo is in June, heard, not regarded.' So Shakespeare's Henry Bolingbroke speaks dismissively of King Richard II.
If only that were still true. If only hearing a cuckoo in June was so ordinary that no-one took note of it. These days it's hot news. We tell friends and neighbours when and where we've heard a cuckoo. And some of us go in quest and keep on searching until we find one. Hearing a cuckoo in spring is our inheritance, not to be lost.
If only that were still true. If only hearing a cuckoo in June was so ordinary that no-one took note of it. These days it's hot news. We tell friends and neighbours when and where we've heard a cuckoo. And some of us go in quest and keep on searching until we find one. Hearing a cuckoo in spring is our inheritance, not to be lost.
In mid-April two friends in the South West had heard their first cuckoo. So I walked on Scout Scar and Helsington Barrows to see if the cuckoo had returned. Redstart sang, and redpoll. Whitebeam is in bud and the birch trees below the escarpment are in leaf. On Helsington Barrows I found a beautiful birch tree laden with green catkins. The slender trunk of the tree has silver bark but on younger side-branches the bark is dark red, like new shoots that give the crowns of birch trees that rich colour through winter.
A local man who heard the cuckoo on May Day also heard his first swift of the season.
A local man who heard the cuckoo on May Day also heard his first swift of the season.
I twice returned to the spot where I'd found cuckoo on 19 th May last year. But all was silent. On May Day i tried again. And this time I heard him. So the cuckoo has returned to the same territory. Is it the same male, or his lineage? I'll never know. He called and called and I knew he was moving through the woodland fringe, dark yews with dense foliage, and larch trees that screened him from sight. I shall return, hoping for a sight of him.
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