Cuck oo Cuck oo
I am wishing a Merry May to you.
So much brilliant colour, sound, and growing going on in this heady month. Shimmering bluebells and technicolours. I’ve noticed the deep pink of campions; the yellow yellow of dandelions, pale yellow primroses, the acid green of new birch leaves and the golden green of tiny new oak leaves. Birdsong is aplenty and much blooming of blossoms. Hawthorn (also known as Mayflower) blossoms are briefly becoming glorious.
An apology for being so sporadic in the posting of my posts. Maybe being this erratic is ok. I may write on the joys of erratic-ness another time. This post though, is mostly about cuckoos and listening.
The sound of a male cuckoo has reached my ears a few times in the early morning this past few weeks. A distant sound this year, often competing or drowned out with much louder noises, of traffic, of beings starting their mornings.
Like many of the birds that form our summer sounds, cuckoos are a globally threatened species, classified Red under the Birds of Conservation Concern. More well known than the cuckoo’s predicament is the cuckoo’s trickster way of being. Pulling off quite the magic act by fooling other birds (often much smaller, such as warblers, pippits and dunnocks) into raising the cuckoo’s young in their nests. I have recently learnt that the hairy caterpillar is a cuckoo’s favourite food. Although how observers and clarifiers of this have defined ‘favourite’ I’m not sure. Is it just the most frequently eaten and most obviously consumed food by the cuckoo? Or does a cuckoo have a ‘nom’ kind of sound that tells of their delight in hairy caterpillars? I don’t know. Cuckoos can also trick in other ways. I have occasionally mistaken the blue-grey and stripey black and white belly of a sitting cuckoo for a sparrow hawk. Although the ‘feel’ of a cuckoo, how it takes space, and flies through space, has a very different ambience to a moving sparrow hawk.
Last May, the ‘cuck oo cuck oo’ rang around the hillsides at home, and then my ears were treated to various cuckoos in North West Scotland whilst on a glorious camping trip. Each camping spot had at least one volleying cuck oo and sometimes layers of different cuck oos resonating each morning. Walks were also accompanied by a rhythmic cuck oo soundtrack. Female cuckoos do not ‘cuck oo’ but make a bubbly kind of sound that I did not hear. Cuckoos travel much further than I did to get to Scotland. Flying such an immense distance from Africa in late March and into April. My slow journey northwards was via roads and paths. In Scotland the cuckoo call transmitted across lochs, echoed in what felt like (and probably was) many miles. Camping at the foothills of the Cuillins on Skye, in particular, the sound was bouncing, reverberating, oscillating. Often bright blue, the sky seemed to contain more space. A lot less infrastructure in the way too. More open-ness, able to give the sound room to roam. Space to focus and listen.
There’s always space for listening, yet sometimes I really don’t want to hear what I’m listening to. Sometimes it’s so cacophonous that I want to blot it out. So, to have the joy of such a deep listening space even for only a short time was glorious.
In this hearing space I was reminded of the composer Pauline Oliveras Deep listening meditations. One of her meditations invites you to walk so quietly that the bottom of your feet have ears. On return from Scotland, I was invited to facilitate an outdoor, outside thought session as part of IOU theatre company’s ‘Art Nature and the Public Realm’ Symposium. In the session, I considered deep listening, and sounds that travel to us. I also use deep listening sometimes as part of a coaching or working outside coaching session.
I wonder, is there a place you can go to, or create, where you can deeply listen?
Maybe have a stand up right now, walk so quietly that the soles of your feet have ears. What can you hear?
In other listenings, what might be resonating most with you right now?
Hoping May is merry and kind with you.
Until next time
With love
Karen
Lovely post Karen. I heard a Cuckoo for the first time in years in Glossop a couple of weeks ago - what a glorious sound. I'm going to take on board your suggestion of deep listening on my next walk.