First calls at the end of March

“Cuckoo, cuckoo” is not just a call from the forest

The cuckoo landed in Carinthia particularly early this year.

(Bild: Anita Hombauer)

The cuckoo is also particularly early this year. According to BirdLife Carinthia, the first cuckoo calls were already heard at the end of March.

Fortunately, the cuckoo was also earlier this year. Fears that it might miss the first breeding of the local songbirds did not materialize. "Animal lovers reported the first cuckoo calls to me as early as the end of March, which is really very early," reports Carinthia's BirdLife expert Andreas Kleewein. If the cuckoo had arrived later, it would only have been able to smuggle its egg into the second brood. "The long-distance migrant has adapted well to the host birds," emphasizes Kleewein.

The cuckoo is moving closer and closer to human settlements.

(Bild: nature-rings)

Redstarts like to breed in gardens and sometimes have to raise a cuckoo.

(Bild: Roland Rauter)

The bird is also spending more and more time in people's homes. "And this can be observed from Upper Carinthia to Lower Carinthia," says Kleewein. So it can happen that the cuckoo call is not only heard from the forest, but suddenly in your own garden. This is because the long-distance migrant has recently started to smuggle its egg into the nest of the black redstart. The little birds then have a lot to do to feed the "brood parasite".

Hundreds of reports
The bird was also heard in other federal states before Cuckoo Day on April 15. BirdLife Austria has received around 650 reports so far, of which a pleasing 171 come from Carinthia. The cuckoo is already suffering from habitat loss. Nevertheless, the bird protection organization asks you to register the first cuckoo call you hear on the BirdLife website at https://birdlife.at/page/kuckuck-meldeaktion.

Reporting tool to protect the cuckoo
"We want to learn more about the arrival of the cuckoo. We can only recognize gradual changes in its arrival on the basis of long-term observations," explains Evelyn Hofer from BirdLife Austria. This is because long-term data series make it possible to learn more about the course of the bird's life over the course of the year and identify any changes over time.