The Cuckoo
What is this bird called?
Where in Ireland is the best place to find the cuckoo?
The land is mostly untouched in Connemara and in the Burren. Very little machinery travels the land and there are Meadow Pipits here as Meadow Pipits nest on the ground.
Why has driven cuckoos out of many parts of Ireland?
What sound does a cuckoo make?
Does the male or female cuckoo make this sound?
Why do birds sing?
When do cuckoos come to Ireland every year?
mid April to August, earliest every recorded in Ireland in 2nd April but rare to see/hear them before 10th April
Adults leave in July but young ones leave in August.
Where do cuckoos go for the rest of the year?
meadow pipit,
The Meadow Pipit when translated to Irish goes as :
Banaltra na Cuacha = cuckoos nurse?
Giolla na Cuacha = cuckoos servant
Cuckoo Superstitions
spotify – Mooney Goes Wild, The Cuckoo, time – 10:12
If you heard a cuckoo before breakfast, you would be hungry for the year.
If you heard a cuckoo through your right ear, you’d have good luck all summer but if you heard it through your left ear, the summer wouldn’t be good for you.
If you heard a cuckoo on the morning of your wedding it was a lucky sign but if you heard a cuckoo in the graveyard there was a death in the family coming up soon.
In Ireland the cuckoo will mainly lay eggs in the Meadow Pipit’s nest, however in Britain cuckoos will mainly lay eggs in the Reed Warblers nest.
So how do cuckoos get away with laying their egg in another nest.
How come the birds don’t recognise the the cuckoo egg among their own?
Listen to Spotift Mooney Goes Wild – The Cuckoo – Listen from 38:50 to 47:00
talk first about incubation in cuckoo and she can watch 20 or so nests.
sometimes other cuckoos can lay eggs in that nest too. may be a battle between cuckoos when born
How do we know that birds migrate?
