The cuckoos are coming!

Flanders Moss NNR and Loch Lomond NNR

Flanders Moss and Loch Lomond are home to one of our most loved and look forward to birds the cuckoo. Everyone knows the cuckoo from its song and it is something that people look forward to hearing every spring. But it is a sound that is getting harder to hear as cuckoos fine it harder and harder to live in our intensively managed countryside. But Flanders is as good a place as any to hear them. There are plenty of small birds to act as hosts for the females to lay eggs with plus Flanders is home to loads of big caterpillars, cuckoos favourite food. This week is nearly always when cuckoos are first heard at Flanders so it is tough we are not able to get out there to listen this year.

But the next best thing is to see that cuckoos are making their way north at this exact moment. The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) has been carrying out research to find out why cuckoos are declining. As part of this work they have been putting minute trackers on individual cuckoos to work out their migration. And these cuckoos are heading north. You can find out more about the BTO project and check on the cuckoos progress here.

And to get a bit of a fix of cuckoo sounds and learn a bit about these special birds why not look here.