On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring

I heard my first cuckoo of the year this morning. Of course it was not the classic two-note cuckoo-clock COO-coo (that belongs to the European bird which doesn't occur here) but rather a soft, even double-note -- poo-poo, poo-poo, poo-poo -- given as a discrete series of calls with pauses between each group. This was almost certainly a Black-billed Cuckoo 'song' but, try as I might, I could not get a glimpse of the bird hiding in the dense, leafy tops of the hickories.

There was a lot of grackle agitation along the edge of the marsh this morning, the source of which was revealed when a young and virtually tailless bird flew up from the reeds. There are also probably chicks in the Pine Neck Osprey nest; yesterday evening I saw an Osprey tearing apart a fish on a dead stub and then fly to the nest. This morning's bird list also included Green Heron, a Bank Swallow over the marsh with the Barn Swallows and Purple Martins, Yellow Warbler, a female Pine Warbler, Baltimore Orioles calling on both sides of the creek, and several House Finches both male and female. Common Yellowthroat remains inexplicably silent.

Mike Bottini points out that yesterday's Horseshoe Crab buried in the sand was probably not laying eggs as there was no smaller male attached to fertilize the eggs (which are ferilized externally at the moment of laying). He thinks it may have been an individual left high and dry by the falling tide and it may have buried in to keep from drying out while awaiting the next high tide (and the arrival of some cooperative males?).

Eric Salzman