A good year for cuckoos and this is excellent cuckoo territory. To them the wilder the better. Not just several males with noticeably varying calls but the bubbling call of the female heard several times.
Following the call and trying to get closer reminds of the rule well known to everyone wanting to take a photograph: wildlife always appears just when you've put the camera away and zipped up the case.
I'm also reminded of the early meeting of the RAG when they were trying to tell us that Blacka being in 'unfavourable condition' had such a bad effect on the birds - 'not a single grouse nested on the moor last year' said the BTO man. Interesting that, I said, has there been no other species that's been doing well? Well, wrens I suppose, he reluctantly replied. No mention of all the exuberant summer visiting song birds, cuckoos etc. I'm sure that if he came back now he would claim that the management of the land in the last ten years has improved things immensely. God knows how. Poisonning trees and installing barbed wire? It's a local speciality: make up your mind first - then look round for something to back it up.
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