I know I had a thread before but wanted to try and get a new one here.
Lots of new cuckoo’s tracked and already some are South of the Sahara.
https://www.bto.org/our-science/projects/cuckoo-tracking-project
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What an amazing project. I live in a great location for cuckoos surrounded by meadows and woodland but haven’t heard or seen one for the last 2 years.
My Dad always used to log the first cuckoo call, I fear he would be sadly disappointed these days…
@Meg must be lots of locations they still visit, I heard the first one in yrs this spring just gone.
I haven’t either, Meg. Used to hear them years ago even near my house, but building the vast housing they’ve been doing & the noise seems to have driven them away.
It is an amazing project.
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@Tiffany Its sad isn’t it Tiffany, I always thought of the cuckoos song as a herald of summer and regret losing it …
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i was always brought up with this negative image of the cuckoo laying its eggs in other birds nests - is that fact or fiction??
Its fact, the parent birds have nothing to with bringing up the chicks, which begs a question how the devil does a fledging know its way south with out encountering another Cuckoo.
simple - it’s embedded in the DNA within the yoke? and that’s not a joke!!
Why are their less cookbooks?
The return Journeys are well on the way, the first tacked cuckoo to cross the Sahara in March has just occurred.
https://www.bto.org/our-science/projects/cuckoo-tracking-project
Sadly, I can’t even remember when I last heard their calls around April time, anymore.
I used to love to hear them every spring.
I used to hear them while out running first thing in the mornings. I would hear them every year around the end of April and into May. Sadly, my running ended last year, so I don’t get out in the country so early or as often now, and did not hear one last year, and probably won’t this year either. But I’ll bet they can still be heard. Woodpeckers were also a common sound while I was padding down those lonely roads. I miss all that… 
We were walking through the woods yesterday , a Woodpecker in alarm I think rattled against a tree right next to us.
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Some tagged ones are in France, obviously untagged ones as well, with southerly’s forecast they won’t be long.
The Cuckoo comes in April, In May it sings all day.
Keep your ears open , if one is back so are a lot more.
PJ is back again
25 Apr 2022
New updates received early yesterday morning (24 April) showed that PJ had flown the final 1,000 km from northern Spain and was back in the UK. Further updates received since tell us that he is safely back on his breeding grounds in the King’s Forest in Suffolk having completed his sixth tracked migration between the UK and Africa. Each complete migration from Suffolk to his wintering grounds in the Congo Basin and back again is approximately 16,000 km (9,940 miles) so we have now tracked him over at least 96,000 km (59,640 miles). He was a second year bird when we tagged him so he had already completed a full migration cycle before we tagged him in 2016. This means that over the course of his life so far he has flown 112,000 km (69,580 miles) on migration alone. It is a wonder he has any energy left to chase around his breeding grounds defending his territory and searching for mates! The oldest ringed UK Cuckoo was caught alive at Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire in 1983 - 6 years, 11 months and 2 days after he was ringed as an adult, making him at least 7 years, 11 months and 2 days old. PJ will have to survive another year to vie for the crown of the UK’s oldest known Cuckoo but his achievements so far have already exceeded our wildest expectations - what a bird!
Ive not heard a Cuckoo for years .To me its a rare sound now , I will certainly listen out for it on my walks and report back if i hear it …
Amazing how many miles Birds clock up when they migrate back and forth .