Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

What a pleasing morning! I heard my first cuckoo of the year - loud, clear and near. Eventually I found him sitting out in the open in a dead tree.

I'd also had news of a pied flycatcher. So off I went.... I didn't know what his song was like (not a good start) but I went anyway. I thought I heard an unfamiliar call and saw something dark arrowing off.... so I waited ... and waited ... and filtered out the calls I knew until I heard this unfamiliar one again - only this time it kept singing. I'm not very good at locating where sounds originate but finally I caught sight of the songster - a beautiful pied flycatcher sitting in the open. And he sang on and on and on. How wonderful. And finally he treated me to a flypast: darting through the trees and arcing right round me. Wow - so lucky me!
Let's hope a suitably impressed female pied flycatcher comes his way.

Photo of cuckoo used by kind permission of Rick Spencer http://astleybirdingblog.blogspot.com
Photo of pied flycatcher by Mike Atkinson http://www.mikeatkinson.net/index.htm