For the first time in three years----

The cuckoo and wood pecker arrive in our woods same time every April. I saw a cuckoo for the first time ever the other day.

The wagtails and redstarts also back. OH saw a hoopoe yesterday.

I knew this thread would start to go the way of everything is going downhill. Be positive!! I am in the US and we have issues but every morning the birds wake me up! It's not all doom and gloom.

It's heartbreaking isn't it, what our birds have to go through just to survive.
Latest horror to add to your list Annaraml, developers netting trees and hedges to stop birds nesting which would delay building work.
I'm still waiting and hoping for the house martins which nest around here every year.
Haven't heard a cuckoo for years. ?

I also haven't heard a cuckoo for years chicken, what a treat. Annaraml a member of the Woodland Trust told me it's cheaper to build on woodland than to 'clean' brownfield sites, which is one reason so many woodland areas are being bulldozed in my area. Also our council is selling off small pockets of land to developers. Such a sad state of affairs that there is no requirement to consider wildlife: it might help if wildlife preservation was a compulsory part of building plans.

I haven’theard one as yet, but the blackbirds are singing so loudly just lately that they probably drown out everything else.

Summer is a coming in,
Loud sings the cuckoo,
Soweth sed, and groweth med
And out springs the wood anew

(Old English)

I think the cuckoos are late this year. I haven't heard one yet, but on Easter Sunday just after dark there was a nightingale singing its little heart out in our garden.

The first time I have heard one in the three years we have lived here.

We love the song of a chaffinch we have in our garden . It reminds us of holidays in Austria .

I don't think I've ever heard a cuckoo. I have a woodpecker that visits my garden frequently but no cuckoos.

Cuckoo heard on the shores of Loch Broom (Ross and Cromarty) last week.

How lovely. I have never heard a cuckoo!
I heard an owl for the first time in a Eurocamp in a forest in the Loire three years ago and stayed awake the next night to hear it again.

Cuckoos are not garden birds but should be heard in woods and open countryside.
For the last few years I’ve heard a cuckoo just a couple of times. This year none at all.
I’ve seen a huge decline in the wildlife in my garden over recent years. Few birds and insects except the commonest kinds, only an occasional hedgehog or toad or slow worm.
What wicked wanton destruction of our beautiful world! I’m ashamed to be human.

Marc, unfortunately the U S is not renowned as the world's. Number one place for interest in anything to do with nature..
HannahLois, you should notify this to your council and also the RSPB. I'm pretty sure it is a crime.
Also you may never get house martins this year, and maybe not in the future, due to 140 million swallows and martins Bering caught in mist nets all along the Mediterranean and North Africa to be cooked and eaten. See my list.
Grandtantje, how wonderful to hear a nightingale. It is 40 years since I heard one, and it was the only time.
Anniefrance, you are in France aren't you? I would love to
see a hoopoe.
BradfordLass, Your cuckoo is just beautiful. Thank you for letting us all see and hear it.

I hear them every year here in rural Essex, but I heard one today for the first time this year as well.

I live very near woods and when I moved to my house in 1984 I heard cuckoos very year. Have not heard one for twenty years or so now. Very sad.

Annaram1, you are my spiritual twin, all the things you mention drive me mad with rage and frustration but I have no idea where to begin to put things right. My son invited me to go on holiday with them to Malta, he couldn't understand why I refused because I didn't want to spend money anywhere that killing migrating birds is accepted. My swifts came back on Sunday, I was so relieved