A male cuckoo called for a solid 5 minutes from a tree in the copse close to our house at Orlandon Kilns this morning at 5:45. This is the first time since we have lived here (19 years) that we have had a cuckoo close by. Sometimes we get a fly-by up the valley and one year, a bird stayed around the marsh for a day but this has always been in April when the birds are heading north. Was this bird a very late northerly migrant, or was he going back south again? Who knows! Anyway, really nice to hear.
Update: Cuckoo calling again this evening but the last I heard of it was ever distant cuckoos as it flew away, apparently westwards.
Rosemary Royle