Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Cuckoo joins endangered list

The cuckoo has been added to the endangered list of birds, issued by the RSPB, with its population declining a full 37% in the UK since the 90s. (Guardian)

3 comments:

Jill of All Trades said...

I find that very sad.

Z said...

My husband heard the cuckoo close by, the other day. He turned and it flew past, still calling. We didn't know that cuckoos called on the wing before.

It slightly puzzles me, though, how the RSPB knows about the decline in numbers. One hardly ever sees a cuckoo, only hears it, and only one at a time. I'd have thought it was very difficult to monitor numbers, and after all, they don't even build nests.

macfly said...

Growing up on a farm in Hampshire I always thought of the Cuckoo as a sinister mean step mother of a bird, so on first reading of its decline I felt a sense joy, and relief at the righeousness of karma at work.

The damn things are worse than murderers, they're murdering squaters of the most sinister kind, a bird so heartless and evil that it seems it must be have given birth to Dick Cheyney.