Flighty parents on an epic trip
Summer had arrived and the cuckoos were delivering their signature songs with gusto.
Four birds, high on hormones, were trying to seduce a shy female delivering her own sounds of solstice joy.
She hid deep within a willow tree, her bubbling trills sending all the males literally cuckoo.
Pursuing, wooing and cuckooing are the only things the males of this species do in life. Cuckoos are the ultimate deadbeat dads, playing no part in the upbringing of their offspring. The females are little better. They plonk their eggs in the nests of unsuspecting reed warblers, meadow pipits or dunnocks for them to take on the role of foster parents and the Herculean labour of supplying an endless stream of grubs to their supersize adopted chicks.
Despite being deprived of a mother’s love, young cuckoos make their way in the world with a remarkable innate skill set to guide them on epic journeys right across the Sahara, deep into Africa and then safely home the following year.
This spring saw scientists at the British Trust for Ornithology celebrating the incredible achievement of a cuckoo named PJ, after he returned to the Suffolk forest where he was first fitted with a satellite tag five years ago.
Since then, PJ has been tracked on a 50,000-mile odyssey, migrating from East Anglia and returning in spring to pour forth his song and continue his lineage.
PJ is one of more than 90 birds to have been tagged since the Cuckoo Tracking Project was launched in 2011 and is the first to complete five separate migratory cycles. Eleven birds were fitted with the hi-tech gadgetry this spring.
Tracking cuckoos from space provides vital information on the hazards faced by a species that has declined by more than half in the past two decades.
One of the most interesting facts is the short period cuckoos actually spend in Britain each summer.
Today, PJ will be preparing to leave. July 5 has become his regular departure date to head south for the winter.
‘‘ They make their way in the world with a remarkable innate skill