Cuckoos are calling again and here is a quick refresh. In general, cuckoos seen locally are the classic easy-to-hear but hard-to-see birds, so you need to identify the calls.
The Fan-tailed Cuckoo does a trill which lasts around two seconds; the Shining Bronze-Cuckoo has a call like whistling a dog (five plus seconds); the Horsfield’s Bronze-Cuckoo has a call similar to the Shining but slower and the sound goes down in tone – a good memory cue is how the shape of a ‘h’ (as in h for Horsfield) also goes down.
Fan-tailed Cuckoo
Although normally hard to see, cuckoos are sometimes seen sitting on a dead branch in the sun. The bronze cuckoos are iridescent and very colourful.
Shining Bronze-Cuckoo
Finally, while cuckoos look good and sound ebullient, they do lay their eggs in the nests of other smaller birds. This outsourcing of their child rearing may annoy some readers and make others envious.
James Orton