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No cuckoos, sadly. I haven't heard one calling here on the Cych for as long as I can remember. But it's cuckoo time elsewhere and I can hope.

Thanks to the BTO's tracking project we know that returning cuckoos are arriving now in eastern England. Since the beginning of the week Chris is now in Essex and Lyster is in Norfolk.

Photo: vogelart.info

Lyster  was in Algeria on April 25. That means he covered the 1,200 miles to Norfolk in just five days - at around 240 miles a day.

We might not have cuckoos, but we do have 'our' swallows. Over the last couple of days a pair of swallows have been performing high-speed chasing manoeuvres around the house and into the garage, presumably to check out last year's nest.

Are they last year's parents back to raise more young?  I like to think so. There is still the problem of the sitting tenants though; a pair of wrens have taken over last year's swallow nest and are now incubating eggs.

What will the swallows do? There are a couple of part-built nests from earlier summers that they could make use of - or will they evict the smaller birds?