CUCKOO CALLING

On hearing the first cuckoo in spring it is traditional to pen a letter to The Times

Migrating north from Africa, the first male common cuckoos (‘cuckoos’) reach Europe in mid-April. In the minds of most country people, spring only truly arrives when the first cuckoo call is heard.

The male cuckoo is famous for its’ distinctive ‘koo-kooo’ call, which has been imitated by clockmakers world-wide

The cuckoo is well-known for its habit of laying an egg in the nest of another bird, then leaving the offspring to be hatched and fed by ‘foster parents’. The tactic allows for more young cuckoos to be reared than would otherwise be possible.

The cuckoo’s favoured foster parent species include pipits, warblers, dunnocks and robins.

A cuckoo chick’s call can be so loud and demanding when wanting food that it can persuade birds other than its foster parent to feed it.

Cuckoos tend to avoid towns and cities and inhabit woodland margins, open farmland, hedgerows and marshes.

The cuckoo is named in most languages after its call.

Calling some ‘cuckoo’ is descriing them as weak in intellect or common sense - it may come from the bird’s monotonous call.

Its earliest recorded use is in the works of PG Wodehouse.

Cloud-cuckoo-land is a place of unrealistic fantasy; it is a translation of the name of the city of the birds in Aristophanes’ comedy The Birds.

The cuckoo has long been associated with fate for humans including

It is good luck to have money in your pocket when you hear a cuckoo

Whatever you are doing when you hear a cuckoo, you should repeat it throughout the year as the call was a sign that the particular activity will be beneficial

For single people, the number of calls or notes would signify how many years they would remain unmarried

In Sweden, the direction of the call signifies either good luck (west), death (south), consolation (east), or sorrow (north).

Sumatran ground-cuckoos are large birds – about 1.6ft long – with green and black feathers. They have so far only been seen on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.