An Unusual Sequence of Events

I was watching peregrines in Wakefield city centre this afternoon when I saw a bird flying over the lower end of the precinct. I saw it only briefly but I said to those around me, “I think I’ve just seen a cuckoo.” About thirty minutes later, a member of the public approached me to tell me about a dead bird that he had found next to his car, which was parked near The Spaniard. He knew that it was something unusual and he mentioned that he thought it might be a cuckoo.

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

I walked around to the car and I found that there really was a dead cuckoo. There were no marks on the bird and I assume that it flew into something.

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

I’ve spent many hours over several years watching peregrines in Wakefield and I’ve seen a number of other bird species but this is the first cuckoo that I’ve seen. How strange that it should die so soon after being spotted.

The good news is that the cuckoo will enter the natural history collection of Manchester Museum as a preserved skin. The skin will be available for people to study now and for many years to come.

This entry was posted in Nature notes and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to An Unusual Sequence of Events

  1. Julie says:

    Hi
    I have been following the progress of the chicks and keep checking for updates and sightings via the homepage of Twitter. As i dont have social media i just check for updates and notice someone today had written in the next few weeks the chicks may disappear altogether. Does this mean they will decide to up and go their own way? If so where will they go? Will they go together or separately? Will the parents go too? Will they be able to survive alone? Sorry for all the questions but just curious.
    Regards
    Julie Harrison

    • Francis Hickenbottom says:

      Julie,
      thank you for the questions, they reminded me to update the FAQs page. I have now done this and if you have a look on there, you should get a picture of what happens next for the young peregrines. Let me know if there is anything that I haven’t covered.
      Best wishes.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *