Tickled pink

I've seen and heard lots of jays in the valley over the last week or so - and yesterday, spotted one in the garden. It made my day; perhaps that should be I was chuffed. Or is it choughed?
At this time of year we often hear them, but I've not seen one in the garden before. But now it sounds like we're in the middle of a jay invasion, or at the BBC Radio 4's Saving Species reckons we are.

Jay
Photo: Luc Viatour/www.Lucnix.be

It was picking up on the fact that the BTO has seen a marked upturn in the reporting rate for jays this year. Birders are seeing more of them and, in some cases, they're seeing them in flocks of more than 20.
Why? It could be that jays are on the move within the UK because of problems with food availability. The acorn crop here is middling, but maybe it's been a bad year elsewhere.
Or maybe jays from the Continent are coming here this year and that it's in mainland Europe that they are going hungry. I suppose we'll find out in time.

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.