Following on from her previous articles, Miss Langdon , Visa Co-ordinator at Queenswood,  keeps us abreast of what the beautiful birds of Q are up to now that spring has sprung!

Welcome back to Q everyone. Although we are at the start of our summer term, I would like to focus today on the wonderful season of spring and what birds we can look forward to seeing but also hearing. I do believe that in these Covid times, the arrival of spring this year has been particularly important to us all and to the hope that things will get better. Nature can really help us a lot in difficult times as she wields her magical spell.

In my humble opinion, the sound of birdsong is what is so particularly wonderful in spring time. During the long winter months, the birds almost lose their voices but now the days are longer and they prepare to raise their families, many of our feathered friends fill the air with their glorious melodies. The males are the singing maestros as they make their territories and try to attract a mate. It really is a case of the males showing off and the females choosing the best possible singer! The ultimate talent show in the birdworld!

You may be familiar with the phrase – the dawn chorus – but I doubt if many will have actually heard it. You need to be an early riser indeed – about 4 am! But if you can set your alarm one day, you will be given a real treat by our feathered friends. The scientists think that the birds sing their loudest at dawn because the sound carries further in the still air rather than later in the day. This will mean more females will hear their singing.

Spring is known as being a time of new life. Many of our migrants return to the UK for the spring in order to breed having wintered in warmer climates. The birds arrive at slightly different times but some of the earliest arrivals are the chiff-chaffs, black caps and warblers – I referred to them in my first article for the newsletter last year. It is more likely that you will see these tiny little birds in the tree-tops because the trees are not yet in full bloom. But once the leaves appear, the birds will disappear from view and you can only spot them by sound.

But I suppose the bird that is synonymous with spring is the Cuckoo. This bird is such an enigmatic character and is very sadly a declining species. The sound of the Cuckoo is of course the quintessential link to spring – we always yearn to hear its call heralding the arrival of spring after a long winter.

You will rarely see the Cuckoo at Q but you can hear them sometimes.  As I say, they are becoming rarer and rarer these days mainly due to loss of habitat in their winter home in Africa.  They only visit us in the spring when they raise their young.  But they do this in the most extraordinary way – one of nature’s most amazing stories.  They are parasites and lay their eggs in the nests of other little birds.

When she's ready to lay an egg, a female swoops to the unattended nest of a smaller species (commonly reed buntings or reed warblers). She then swallows one of the eggs that's been laid there and lays one of her own—a behaviour known as brood parasitism. Once the cuckoo egg hatches the fledgling then disposes of the eggs that are left in the next.   The little “host” birds are then left with the task of raising a ginormous chick.

Before finishing talking about Cuckoos, I must share one thing with you. One day – many years ago, I was walking back from Q to my home in Ramsey Close and I could hear the call of the Cuckoo. It was so wonderful to hear it and it really did seem to be quite close. The further I walked home, past the tennis courts and across Shepherd’s Way, the louder the sound became.

As I entered the flats, the sound was unbelievably loud. I began to think that one of my neighbours was playing a prank on me and had a tape recording of a cuckoo playing as I arrived. But no – as I walked into the gardens at the back, I looked up into one of the small trees in my garden and lo and behold there was a Cuckoo. I had never seen one so close before. It continued to issue its distinctive call for quite a while as I patiently watched and then finally it flew off. Quite an experience and one I will probably never have again.

That’s it for this article. I hope to write a few more later this term but in the mean time I wish you all a very enjoyable summer term and I hope you enjoy a bit of “birding” along the way, either seeing them or hearing them.