Away days

April seems to gone by in a blur. I've had so much to do away from home that I haven't been able to spend much time in the garden. And it's changing so quickly this year - it's as though spring is happening on fast-forward.

I'm just back from a trip to Snowdonia with photographer Drew Buckley for a book-in-the-making for the publisher Graffeg. We went to the mountains to the east of Harlech, known as the Rhinogydd or Rhinogs, which I reckon is the most exhilarating bit of National Park. 
We needed pictures of feral goats. So far, they've eluded us but this time the visit didn’t end up as another wild goose chase and Drew managed to get a first-class set of images of billy goats in the setting of the range’s peaks and lakes.
My camera wasn't up to getting a good goat picture, but I like this one of Drew closing in on his 'prey'. It gives a feel of how unforgiving the countryside the goats live in really is.
What made the outing that bit better was that down in Cwm Bychan, where we left our cars, a cuckoo was calling. Sunshine, the oaks in new leaf, lambs everywhere and a cuckoo - it couldn't have been better.

Returns policy

Photo: vogelart.info

It feels a little like our summer has been and gone here in Pembrokeshire. This week has been grey and dull. So, it’s a little depressing to know that summer’s birds are already beginning to head south.
The BTO’s cuckoo tracking project is reporting on the progress of their radio tagged birds and apparently some have already crossed to Europe. The first to go was a bird they have called Sussex, which left England for France last week.

Since then more have gone and as of yesterday five of the 13 cuckoos had left the UK. They’ve gone to Belgium, France and Germany, while Sussex is now 100 miles or so from Rome. You can follow their progress on the BTO website here.

Flight time

Spring is on the way, or at least cuckoos are. The weather forecast here in Pembrokeshire is promising us a return to winter, but down in west Africa the BTO's radio-tagged cuckoos are beginning to head north once again.  

Falling over

It's been a few years now since I last heard a cuckoo here on the Cych, but I continue to live in hope. I can relate to the delight Rudi at Tarka's Challenge felt when he heard one at Kenfig the other day - he says: "I was so excited I nearly fell over."

Photo: vogelart.info

Kenfig is only 50 miles away from me here, so I'll keep my fingers crossed for my own falling-over moment.But I wouldn't put money on the odds. 
The BTO is hoping to radio track cuckoos again this year, having followed the movements of five English cuckoos last year. Perhaps with a better understanding of the lives of cuckoos something could be done to halt the species' decline.

This spring the charity is hoping to raise £60,000 to keep tabs on 15 birds this year and it wants expand the study to include female birds and some from Scotland and from Wales. Visit this page if you'd like to make a contribution.

Back home

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?

Early warning

We've dodged most of the snow here on the Cych, but it has been a cold, cheerless week. So it's good to know that it looks like spring is heading our way.

Or cuckoos are anyway. I really enjoyed being able to track last year's cuckoo migration via the British Trust for Ornithology's satellite tracking project.

vogelart.info

Transmitters that weigh just 5g were been fitted to five cuckoos and BTO scientists tracked their journeys between here and Africa. It meant that you could follow their journeys at the BTO's website and on the trip south it became a nail-biter as they flew over Europe and then the Sahara through all sorts of hazards.

And it looks like it's happening all over again. All the birds have spent the winter in the Congo, but now two of the five have started moving north and west, which could mean that they're on their way.

Don't hold your breath though as it takes some time. One of the five, Martin, left England at the end of June last year and it took the bird a leisurely three weeks to get to the toe of Italy before a two day sprintover the Sahara to Chad.