No sign of the cuckoo

SPRING is galloping on. It’s now the second week of May, the week in the year when gardeners in the cold Midlands, where I live, wonder whether the danger of night frosts has passed or if one morning they’ll find the potato shoots have blackened and that they planted out the French bean seedlings a few days too early. 

Despite the worries, I love this time of year. But I’ve just realised that something is missing. I haven’t heard the cuckoo.

For many years I’ve heard him (of course only the male makes the eponymous call) in late April or early May and occasionally seen him flitting between tall hedgerows, mobbed by angry small birds. But this year, although I’ve spent a lot of time outdoors, this herald of the turning year is absent.