Sound of more cuckoos calling in May is a good Mayo sign

COUNTRYFILE

IN the natural world one can measure time with the coming and going of certain birds and animals.

While this might not be a precise science, or be relied upon for attendance at important meetings, it is good if one has nothing important to do for a week either side of the arrival of the first swallow or the eventual silence and departure of the cuckoo.

And what was time to our ancestors? Yes, they had their church once a week, but apart from that they lived largely independent of clock and calendar. And who would not envy them their freedom?

One friend spoke fondly on hearing the cuckoo during the second week of April. 'There he is, right on time! The 12th – it's always the 12th, every year without fail.'

When another man pointed out that the cuckoo had been heard at least a week prior to this, the answer was immediate and conclusive. 'But that wasn't my cuckoo. Mine gets here on the 12th.' And who could refute it?

As far as I know, the first cuckoo seen in the country this year was on March 25, down at Helvick Head in Co. Waterford.

Or perhaps someone was out with their tape recorder, playing cuckoo sounds to confuse their neighbours.

But remember those wise words of old – 'In May she sings all day, In June she changes her tune…'

There were more cuckoos singing or calling this May than I have heard for many years, which has to be a good sign.

One reason may be that more 'woolly bear' moth caterpillars, which make the bulk of the adult cuckoo diet, have survived through a succession of mild winters. Another contributing factor might be the considerable drop in the use of herbicides.

Splashing weedkiller around is bound to contaminate insect life, and through a process of bio-accumulation this will become concentrated in the bodies of birds that eat weedkillered insects. We know what happened with DDT and peregrine falcons.

We nearly lost the peregrine altogether, before we learned something of the harm that was being done and changed our ways.

So now we have a cuckoo at every corner, and we know we are into June, as the bird has indeed changed its tune, so that we only hear it at either end of the day, in the morning and for a few hours again before dark.

Who needs a calendar?

In France it once was widely believed that all cuckoos turned into birds of prey on the Feast Day of St. James (July 25).

In parts of Germany they were cuckoos only in the spring, and hawks for the rest of the year, stealing poultry and killing pigeons. Even in England many had them as cuckoos for just three months of the year, before they whistled and sang whilst turning into hawks.

Imagine being among those interested in bird migration and stepping up to challenge popular belief.

'Adult cuckoos fly to Africa in August and don't turn into hawks at all. And this year's young cuckoos go to Africa in September, with no one to guide them or show them the way.'

The scientists of the day would likely not even answer such a statement. Weren't they the educated ones? And who were you to challenge such well-held belief?

A mere hundred years on, we know a bit more about bird migration.

Even so, there are many questions to which we don't yet have answers, including the one about fledgling cuckoos undertaking successful migration, as if they possess some kind of inherited memory.

There is a lot more we don't know. Measuring time in minutes rather than months leaves barely room for thought. What can be done?