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Collared dove call11/20/2023 ![]() But the situation varies across countries, with cuckoos in Wales doing better, and those in Scotland doing much better, than those in England. As a result, they joined the UK Red-list of birds of highest conservation concern in 2009. Across the UK as a whole, the State of UK Birds Report 2020 said numbers of cuckoos have fallen 53% between 19. While most people know what a cuckoo sounds like, fewer will have actually heard one. They’re not normally a garden bird, and you’re far more likely to hear one than see one, as they’re quite secretive, and the call can carry for some distance. They tend to avoid built-up areas, but you may hear them calling near the fringes of more rural towns and villages. They can be found across the UK, preferring rural habitats, particularly open woodland, upland heath, marsh and reedbed. Where to lookĬuckoos are migratory birds, the adults spend just a few short months in the UK from April to June/July with juveniles departing a little later in the summer. Its new ‘parents’, often meadow pipits, reed warblers or dunnocks in the UK, then feed and care for the chick as if it were their own. When the egg hatches, the young cuckoo evicts any other eggs or chicks in the nest. That’s why they're able to migrate south again so early in the summer. Females lay one egg at a time in a number of host nests (always the same species they themselves were raised by) and then play no further part in chick rearing. NestingĬuckoos have famously deceptive breeding habits. The female cuckoo can then sneak in and lay her egg. This may be an evolutionary strategy that helps them locate the nests of target ‘host’ species, by flushing the host parent bird off the nest, thereby giving away the nest location. Indeed, cuckoos are often mobbed by small birds, probably because of their resemblance to raptors - in both shape and colour. They’re very easy to confuse with a small bird of prey in flight. Flightįlies at moderate speed with regular shallow wing beats. The female cuckoo has a very different call, sometimes described as a ‘bubbling chuckle’. The earliest you’re likely to be able to hear a cuckoo calling is mid-April, and the latest is June, so outside of that period, you’re probably hearing something else. For any keen musicians, the interval of the call starts as a minor third in spring, and then usually changes to a perfect fourth later in the summer. The call is usually very clear and has two syllables that descend from the first note to the second. Grey/blue on top, light belly with dark barring. ![]() Nature’s ultimate trickster Visual Identification
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