Cuckoo

[AndyP]

Heard the first one of the year today. Quite late this year normally they are audible from mid April.

 

[Mike G]

They're really suffering in Africa, and so fewer and fewer make it up here every year. I heard my first a couple of days ago, and if last year is anything to judge by, it may be the last one too.

 

[RogerS]

Heard our first one yesterday. No sign of any swallows sadly. The numbers have been going down, year on year.

 

[Mike G]

.... No sign of any swallows sadly. The numbers have been going own, year on year.

Get yourself down this way, Roger. There are plenty of swallows here now, although not in mid-summer numbers yet.

 

[duke]

Get yourself down this way, Roger. There are plenty of swallows here now, although not in mid-summer numbers yet.

Our tree swallows have been here for about a week and have put dibs in on the nesting boxes. The barn swallows should arrive soon.

 

[SamQ aka Ah! Q!]

I'm same latitude as Roger, on the east coast; ditto, cuckoo yesterday. No swallows

 

[johnward]

I saw one flying about a week ago. A beautiful bird. It's from the family Cuculus, which has ten members which are spread throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.

 

[Tris]

No cuckoos in these parts for a couple of years now. A pity as they are a fascinating bird. I gather they are very specific in their target species so probably impacted in both places with a decline in songbirds here too.

We've got maybe half the usual number of swallows here this year

 

[Lons]

We're in Fort William at the minute and there are several around here competing with each other. There were at least 3 around the lochside last night.

 

[AndyP]

I saw one flying about a week ago. A beautiful bird. It's from the family Cuculus, which has ten members which are spread throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.

I saw one fly over our garden a few years ago. I was surprised to see/hear that the “sing” while in flight.

Another harbinger of spring in these parts is the white stork, although they seem to come earlier each year and I am sure may not even migrate. There are few regular nest sites around the marshes around here.


Still non existent in the UK I believe.

 

[Dr.Al]

I saw one fly over our garden a few years ago. I was surprised to see/hear that the “sing” while in flight.

Another harbinger of spring in these parts is the white stork, although they seem to come earlier each year and I am sure may not even migrate. There are few regular nest sites around the marshes around here.


Still non existent in the UK I believe.

Storks non existent? So where do all the babies come from?!

 

[Alder]

We have yet to hear the cuckoo in 2024. A lone swallow arrived around the 10th of April about a week earlier than usual. A couple of days later it's mate arrived. A few days later another lone swallow arrived in a second outbuilding again to be joined three days later by a mate.
Within a few days they all disappeared only for a pair to return today.
Possible reason for leaving may be the cold and wet resulting in too few insects for food.
Russell

 

[Steve Maskery]

I heard a cuckoo a few weeks ago, but not heard him since. Lots of other birds though. In Kirkby I only ever saw pigeons and magpies. The occasional blackbird or robin, but that was it (oh, a heron once perched on my workshop roof). But here (SW France) we get allsorts. We saw a hoopoe sitting on the grass acouple of weeks ago. Heard them many times but never saw one before.
S

 

[RogerS]

Heard our first one yesterday. No sign of any swallows sadly. The numbers have been going down, year on year.

The swallows (two of them) have arrived

 

[Mr P]

Heard one today in Clumber Park.

 

[AJB Temple]

Was just thinking yesterday that there are fewer birds around in terms of our usual species seen in the garden. Swallows are sparse. Heard no cuckoo. Rooks are far fewer. No woodpeckers so far (usually we have green, greater and lesser spotted). Moorhens have disappeared and so have the mallards. No tree creepers spotted. No wrens. No wagtails. Fewer bats I think. Lots of small midges over the ponds and in hot air rising over the smaller trees when it's (rarely) sunny in the evenings. Not many dragonflies despite our nature pond, but it's maybe a bit early yet. I wonder if we are seeing the knock on effect of what appears to be a long term insect crisis. (Monoculture and pesticides at fault?)

 

[Alder]

Cuckoo has now arrived and the Swallows are back, have also seen a moorhen.
Russell

 

[Mike G]

I heard another cuckoo this evening. Funnily enough, I bumped into a chap out on a walk a day or two ago who was a BTO expert volunteer walking a transect and recording all the species he could see or hear. Fascinating. At one point he stopped and said "hear that?", and it was a spotted flycatcher (apparently) 150 metres away, indistinguishable to me above the cacophany of the other birdsong all around us. Anyway, this expert said that cuckoos are locally common, but aren't as widespread as they used to be. In southern Essex where there are lots of reedbeds, he said they're everywhere.

 

[HappyHacker]

I have not seen any swallows yet and I very rarely hear a cuckoo, once every few years. I do spend a reasonable amount of time outside. I lived nearby as a child in the 50's and cuckoos were heard most days.
I regularly see herons, they come for our fast food takeaway but I dont think there are any fish left but they may be a frog or two and the odd newt.
Most years we have a lot of Jackdaws, they often congregate in a large ash and make conversation difficult. I haven't noticed any so far this year.
Bats are becoming rarer, we used to see a few of them every evening but now much less frequently and you have to look for them.
Buzzards are common overhead and in the garden, saw some earlier in the year but not heard or seen any recently.
Lots of magpies around. Haven't seen the usual number of starlings around the bird feeders.

I used to do a lot of driving around the country and about 12 years ago driving down little lanes in Cumbria around dusk was the last time I had to use my windscreen wipers to clear bugs off the screen. I remember because it had been so long since I have had to do it.

 

[Mike G]

I used to do a lot of driving around the country and about 12 years ago driving down little lanes in Cumbria around dusk was the last time I had to use my windscreen wipers to clear bugs off the screen. I remember because it had been so long since I have had to do it.

Yep. The decline has been dramatic. Without wishing to blame the farmers........it's because of the farmers. The pesticides these days are brutal.....and if you don't have insects, you lose your birds and bats.

 

[AJB Temple]

Yes, I agree, but it's not just pesticides. It's also the government and dimwit DEFRA encouraged "efficient" approach to monoculture that is causing immense harm not only to insect populations but also the soil. A farmer near us, who we know via his wife, has 300 acres of one crop: oil seed rape. This makes the most god awful honey (goes solid very easily) by the way. To achieve monoculture production they spray off the weeds, load the soil with very expensive nitrogen rich fertiliser, and drill vast swathes of a single food or bio crop. It's hardly surprising that wildlife and insects do not thrive. The soil is being denuded of insects and filled with oil and chemically derived nitrogen. Crop rotation - pah! Same crop for past 4 or 5 years, chemically supported.

If anyone is watching the current Jeremy Clarkson farm series (it's funny but he is cleverly making some very serious points about the economics and practicality of farming) there is an episode where two guys are trying to revitalise soil health by planting two crops together, interspersed: beans and wheat was the example I think, in an effort to regenerate the soil. They both appear in this months Waitrose magazine as well coincidentally (or not). Requires disc harrowing (not pre fertilised plug drilling) and some special harvesting kit, so not suitable for one trick pony farms.

We should all be concerned about absence of insects as it signals a barren environment.

 

[HappyHacker]

While the farmers are the cause of much of the decline I do not believe they are to blame. We have had various policies over the years which have caused problems for farmers, anyone remember the butter mountains, wine lakes etc. Farmers need to make a living and many reports shown that while the larger farmers don't do badly from all the subsidies the smaller one are paid less that the minimum wage for the hours they put in and are often dependent on families all working on the farm.
More recently having left the EU we have had new schemes in England where some farmers found it more profitable to put 80% of their acreage into the environmental schemes thereby removing them from food production. This has apparently now been changed to limit the amount that can be put into the schemes. Wales are going to insist farmers put 20% (from memory) of their land into environmental schemes, Welsh farmers point out that this will make the farms uneconomic.

We now import a lot of our food from countries that have lower food production standards than ourselves and often lower labour costs so without subsidies our farmers cannot compete so we end up being completely dependent on imports.

With the costs of fertilisers now being so high farmers do not want to waste it but if they do not use fertilisers and weed killers they cannot get the quality of crops demanded by the marked nor the quantity to make a profit. We now import about 60% of fertiliser used as many of the UK facilities have been closed.

Just a silly aside of some of the obstacles farmers face: a friend was fined a % of his SPS (Single Payment Scheme, an old EU scheme) a following a DEFRA inspection as he did not have a map of watercourse on his holding. He asked how he was meant to produce a map showing that he had no water courses on his property. He offered to take the inspector for a walk around the holding to see the absence of watercourses. The reply was "you need a map!"

 

[AJB Temple]

Yes, HH. I agree. Which is why I mentioned government policies and DEFRA who I think are interfering beurocrats who would not know a farm if they saw one. Farming should be the backbone of this country and it isn't. My family has always been in farming to some extent and the industry is beset by political fashions constantly moving the goal posts. Totally agree about both imports and standards. My ex BIL had a pig farm in Friesland and intensive is not the word!

Oddly enough programmes like The Archers used to have sensible farming content. Now it is all about rewilding and small farms being organic and hand picking everything.

 

[duke]

Yes, I agree, but it's not just pesticides. It's also the government and dimwit DEFRA encouraged "efficient" approach to monoculture that is causing immense harm not only to insect populations but also the soil. A farmer near us, who we know via his wife, has 300 acres of one crop: oil seed rape. This makes the most god awful honey (goes solid very easily) by the way. To achieve monoculture production they spray off the weeds, load the soil with very expensive nitrogen rich fertiliser, and drill vast swathes of a single food or bio crop. It's hardly surprising that wildlife and insects do not thrive. The soil is being denuded of insects and filled with oil and chemically derived nitrogen. Crop rotation - pah! Same crop for past 4 or 5 years, chemically supported.

If anyone is watching the current Jeremy Clarkson farm series (it's funny but he is cleverly making some very serious points about the economics and practicality of farming) there is an episode where two guys are trying to revitalise soil health by planting two crops together, interspersed: beans and wheat was the example I think, in an effort to regenerate the soil. They both appear in this months Waitrose magazine as well coincidentally (or not). Requires disc harrowing (not pre fertilised plug drilling) and some special harvesting kit, so not suitable for one trick pony farms.

We should all be concerned about absence of insects as it signals a barren environment.

Has the no till approach to farming getting established in the UK?

 

[Cabinetman]

A lack of hedgerow birds can be partly be put down to the large numbers of Magpies which Farmers aren’t allowed to control anymore. They systematically raid nests for young birds.
An awful lot of people can’t stand Jeremy Clarkson, but I think his farming program is brilliant, it really shows the problems faced by Farmers, who seem to be facing problems from all sides at once, and not just the weather.

 

[AJB Temple]

Is that completely true Ian? The general licence rules appear to allow farmers to shoot Magpies to protect crops or livestock, with the proviso that you must be able to show that you are growing crops. Table of guidance here: https://www.fieldsportschannel.tv/generallicences/

Just renewing my shotgun licence now. (I only shoot clays). Cost of GP letter is double the cost of the actual licence renewal these days.

Agree re JC - it's an excellent programme and his farm adviser Charlie Ireland is the real deal.

 

[Cabinetman]

Well that’s what I had been told, but could be just local folk gripe! Certainly there seem to be a lot more than years ago.