Cuckoos are hard workers

CUCKOOS, the first of the migrant birds to leave our shores in the Autumn, are packing their bags.

Some are gone already and virtually all adult ones will have left by the end of the month. Youngsters hatched this year will follow them in September. According to the Migration Atlas, our cuckoos travel inland through Europe, down the spine of Italy, and across the Mediterranean to Africa.

Adults are difficult to catch and nests with young cuckoos in them hard to find, so few cuckoos are ringed. This means that we still don’t know where in southern Africa our birds go. A juvenile recorded in Cameroon is the only cuckoo ringed in Britain or Ireland to have been found on the Dark Continent. A Dutch-ringed cuckoo, also a juvenile, visited Togo.