Am I right in thinking there are less cuckoos around than formerly? Or do they now all work for the Council?
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I haven’t heard one for about fifty years, because I haven’t been living in the countryside or where they are generally to be heard.
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I think I heard one last year in Cumbria. Does that sound right?
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I’d be sad if it wasn’t! Cheeky little buggers used to ignore humans when I lived in Oxford. In childhood in Berkshire, I lay in bed early morning listening to cuckoos and woodpeckers.
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Never knowingly heard one.
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Gosh!
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Loads of the blighters around here, Aisling.
Better than that… I have at least two pairs of woodpeckers that seem to be resident in this part of the valley.
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I have frequently heard woodpeckers on my walks in one particular wood, but I have not yet seen one.
There are deer there as well, but I have only seen them once.
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Sometimes people look in the wrong places. They can hear them making that weird almost laughing sound and look up into the trees. You’re more likely to see them on the ground.
Drumming, they’ll be up a tree, but harder to see and the drumming can carry for long distances.
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Yes. I have followed it through the wood, but not actually seen the bird.
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I saw a little woodpecker just yesterday, working hard on a telegraph pole. We were just by the Dominion Arboretum, too, so he (or she) wasn’t short of real trees!
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Poor confused little bird! Or (a thought strikes) maybe they use the drumming to attract mates as well as try to catch insects? (I have no idea about the habits of woodpeckers.)
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Nor I. The telegraph pole used to be a tree, so he wasn’t that far wrong, was he? But as you say, it’s spring, maybe he was showing off. Anyhow, a lovely sight. They are quite common here in Ottawa. As are cardinals, blue jays and redwing blackbirds, all very showy birds, along with huge robins that are really thrushes.
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I have a woodpecker that drills away in my (mossy) lawn, he was so busy the other week I thought he was heading down under
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Must have been lots of yummy grub (or grubs) in your lawn, LadySusan. I hope he kept looking over his shoulder, though. Life can be hazardous on the ground!
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Indeed it can but Mr Conrad is grounded at the moment so all the wild life keeps coming close to the patio doors and laughing at him but…not for much longer !! but as you know his first choice is a mouse, maybe two even, the little perisher !!
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I was mortified when one of ours (cats) caught a hummingbird. Awful! Amazing that she managed it, though. You have to be pretty fast. I think it was Pippa, the one we called Squirrel-Bane.
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I have heard of an American domestic cat catching a bluejay on the wing, having leaped off the back of a chair to try it. Hard to say which of them was more surprised.
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I’m afraid Pippa the Killer was more than capable of that. She could catch a bat on the wing. A non-discriminatory serial killer. I let Heidi out without a harness yesterday and she looked at a robin and decided she couldn’t be bothered. Good!
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I had a Dalmatian once who chased a squirrel up a tree… He also once caught a duck as it was taking off, by leaping.
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