The last time I heard a cuckoo (the feathered kind) was as a girl in England when, if I woke early enough, I could lie in bed and listen to the dawn chorus. If I was lucky, there would come, amidst all the cheeping and chirping, the clear sound of a cuckoo.
On my walk yesterday, through woods bursting with green, birds singing etc., I suddenly heard the unmistakable sound of a cuckoo. It is the only bird call I know with any degree of certainty. I realized that I’d been living in Southern California for too long when my first thought was to wonder why on earth there was a pedestrian crossing signal in the middle of the woods.