Western Morning News (Saturday)
Cuckoo clocks in – right on time
Charlie Elder savours the song of a newly arrived cuckoo – a sound that fewer and fewer people get to enjoy as numbers continue to decline
IWAS woken by a cuckoo clock earlier this month. And right on time. Every spring cuckoos return to the westernmost fringe of Dartmoor where I live in the middle of April.
And this year the first I heard was just after sunrise on April 16, a special treat the day before Easter.
I got up and went outside into the garden to listen and savour the sound.
It was a cold morning and the repeated call emanated from a lowlying mist which blanketed the valley below.
I could picture the exact perches it was likely to be using as a songpost. We are fortunate here in getting at least a couple every year and they tend to call from the line of telegraph poles and tall trees which skirt the moor.
I quickly hopped into my car and drove the short distance down to the valley in the hope of spotting the bird, which must have arrived back after the lengthy journey from its African wintering grounds during the night. However, the fog was too dense and its call became fainter until it moved off, hidden within the mist.
I was content just to have enjoyed the sound. It is far more distinctive than the bird’s appearance and, of course, has given the species its onomatopoeic name. More than that, the cuckoo’s unmistakable song is one of the few bird sounds which even a total birdwatching beginner can recognise.
There is something so simple, and yet so powerful, about the call of a cuckoo, with its heartbeat rhythm. In technical parlance the twin notes are a descending minor third, translating as the notes A and F-sharp, and it can be accurately replicated with a wind instrument. Little wonder it provided such inspiration for 19th century clockmakers.
And where we hear the call cuc-koo, cuc-koo, those in other countries presumably hear it ever so slightly differently, given descriptive names vary from kuckuck in Germany and koekoek in Holland to kukur in Iceland and kakukk in Hungary.
In appearance the cuckoo looks a bit like a cross between a pigeon and a falcon, grey in colour and dovesized, with thin barring across the chest and pointed wings which it holds beneath the horizontal while flying. They also alight in quite a characteristic way, with longish tail cocked and wings drooped down.
The females have a flush of rustybrown on the chest and make an unexpected bubbling trill sound, which I have been fortunate enough to hear on a couple of occasions. The first time I wondered why there was a hidden curlew singing from a tree!
Dartmoor
National Park remains a stronghold for the species, but far too many people across Britain sadly never hear a cuckoo from one spring to the next as this declining species has vanished from many areas.
We have lost more than half of the UK cuckoo population since the 1970s, yet it is uncertain exactly why. Factors are thought to include a lack of sufficient food as insect numbers have declined – particularly the hairy caterpillars they eat that other species find distasteful. The changing fortunes of host species which cuckoos target with their egg laying could also play a part, as could problems during migration. Intriguingly, changes in cuckoo numbers vary dramatically across the UK, which has a total population of some 15,000 pairs. The Scottish population is faring well, while numbers have fallen over time across England, including the Westcountry. Studies show that they are now increasingly found in areas of heathland, especially in the uplands, rather than in the farmed lowlands. Cuckoos famously parasitise the broods of other birds, laying their eggs in their nests and letting them carry out the chore of raising their young. Target species include the reed warbler and dunnock, as well as the meadow pipit – of which there are plenty on Dartmoor. Their dump-andrun parenting behaviour has fascinated naturalists down the centuries. After mating the female turns birdwatcher, looking out for the nest of a suitable host species. This is far from random as females inherit a preference for certain target species and lay eggs that closely match the shell colour and patterning of those they opt to deceive.
When the coast is clear she sneaks in, rapids lays an egg and removes one of the host’s own clutch – in order to outwit those keen-eyed birds which can count.
A female cuckoo can lay a single egg in up to two dozen different nests during the breeding season, spreading the chances of success.
The fast-growing cuckoo embryo typically hatches first and the tiny nestling then heaves all the other eggs over the side of the nest to eliminate any competition for food. Brutal stuff.
With plaintive squeals and a huge open gape, it entices its adoptive parent birds to feed it, rapidly gaining weight until it dwarfs them in size and outgrows the nest.
Eventually it goes its own way – resident foster parents presumably none the wiser – and heads south to join adult cuckoos that have already made it to tropical Africa for the winter. It just goes to show how incredible their genetic programming is that these young birds can navigate the long distance without any migrating parents to act as guides.
The local cuckoo I heard in midApril went quiet and I worried that it had gone for good, but fortunately I heard its repetitive song again this week, singing away for all it was worth – and doubtless driving those who live nearby slightly cuckoo!
With a resemblance to falcons, cuckoos are frequently harassed by mobs of anxious songbirds seeking to drive them away, which can help them identify the nest sites of potential hosts. It can also help us identify cuckoos, as they fly along with a small entourage of meadow pipits and the like chasing in their wake.
If you want to hear a cuckoo, they are pretty widespread, but thinly spread, and Westcountry moors and heaths are a good bet, or check websites and social media to see where they have been heard or seen.
It’s time to welcome back these charismatic birds. Spring could never be the same without them. And as the 13th century medieval folk song, which celebrates the coming season and its strident harbinger, puts it: ‘Sumer is icumen in, Lhude sing cuccu.’