THE CUCKOO IS A BONNIE BIRD and
ROADSIDE FLOWERS
Agnes Stewart
Since the spring of 1981, our first spring living
here in Lagavurich, I have noted the movements of the cuckoos in and around
our garden, and in the first years there were many, calling at times varying
from 3 a.m. till midnight, and at almost any time in between. But the cuckoos
are getting scarcer. Last year, 1993, we didn't hear a single cuckoo in our
garden, and this year, we have heard it only a few times in the garden, and
once in the graveyard. Most of these recent calls have been quite far
off.
Of course, there have been changes. The thick rhododendrons at the top of Kilkerran graveyard have been cut away. In the spring of 1992, there was a lot of work being done on the oil pipeline, and consequently a lot of noise and disturbance. But I wonder if there are any other reasons why the cuckoos have deserted us, for even before these changes there were fewer of them about. Where once we could distinguish several different voices calling, latterly there seemed to be only one bird.
Certainly, the cuckoo can still be heard in many places throughout Kintyre, but it worries me that they seem to have almost deserted Kilkerran graveyard, and my garden, places where formerly they were almost certain to be heard on nearly any day from 19th April to the summer solstice. April 19th was my earliest ever cuckoo, and that was in 1987. The latest call I have heard was on 23rd June, in 1985. I only hope that the cuckoo doesn't go the way of that other harbinger of spring, the corncrake.
Many years, I have just heard the cuckoo, but on several occasions, notably in the spring of 1989, I have been privileged to see the bird at close quarters. During that spring, two cuckoos landed on shrubs in my garden, not ten yards from the window where I stood, and on several other occasions that same year, I watched two cuckoos, possibly the same two, as I walked in Kilkerran graveyard, both early in the morning, and in the evening. Oftener, though, sightings have been at a distance of several hundred yards, when the bird's distinctive flight has been recognised.
I often wonder if my interest in cuckoos sprang from the fact that my maternal grandfather, Daniel Morrison, was born at Portmacook, i.e. Port na cuthaig, the cuckoos's port, at Saddell. Certainly, his daughter, my mother, loved to hear the call, and would often say on hearing it, "The cuckoo is a bonnie bird, the cuckoo's tails are clean."
There are many superstitions attached to this fascinating bird, which has such a callous method of ensuring the wellbeing of her offspring, the commonest, I think, being that anyone hearing the cuckoo will live for another year. My mother, especially in the last years of her long life, was almost desperately anxious to hear the cuckoo, so that she, who loved life, would have another year. Many people of my mother's generation were of the same mind. One lady regularly took a daily picnic to Kilkerran graveyard early in May, and waited there till she heard the familiar call. Closely allied to this superstition is the common saying among shepherds, speaking of a ewe who maybe had a difficult lambing, "If she leeves tae hear the cuckoo, she'll do."
In some of the western isles, it is considered to be a sign of a coming death in the family if a cuckoo lands on the house. I wonder if this could be related to the fact of death in the host bird's family when the cuckoo lands and lays her egg.
Then in parts of Ireland, the belief is that whichever direction you face when you first hear the cuckoo in springtime, that is the direction you will take during the rest of the year. And, of course, there was the poor fellow who was facing the local graveyard when he heard it, and who got into an awful panic!
In the last years of my mother's life, when she spent quite a lot of time with us at Lagavurich, I asked her about her couplet, "The cuckoo is a bonnie bird, the cuckoo's tails are clean." She said that when she was a girl going to Millknowe School - probably before 1910, for she was born in 1900 - she and her friends used to meet an old woman, and call after her, "Katie Cuckoo, Katie Cuckoo." Her name was Katie 'Vey, she told me, using the local habit of dropping the 'Mac', for the lady was Catherine McVey.
According to my friend Angus Martin, Catherine McVey was born Catherine McMillan in Bolgam Street. She married John McVey (who was born in Carnlough), and had seven children, and she died in the Poorhouse in December 1929. Angus hadn't heard of the nickname, but the dates fit in with that particular Mrs McVey being one and the same as my mother's 'Katie Cuckoo'.
I have wandered a bit from the 'bonnie bird', but can only hope that future years and more awareness of the need for conservation will result in a return of more cuckoos, for indeed, "The cuckoo is a bonnie bird, the cuckoo's tails are clean".
No 36 Autumn 1994
THE ROADSIDE FLOWERS
Agnes Stewart
Over a four month period during the summer of 1996,
I did an increasingly regular count of the varieties of wild flower to be
found beside a three mile stretch of Kilkerran Road, from my home out to
a lay-by beyond the fourth milestone. This started almost by accident in
the middle of May, and started like this. Allister and I regularly walk that
stretch of road before breakfast on a Sunday moming, one of us taking the
car out to the lay-by and walking home, the other walking out to pick up
the car, taking turns at each direction. On one Sunday moming, when the mist
obscured the wider view, I started to count the flowers, and on that Sunday,
19th May, I recognised 39 different varieties, and I was hooked!
Not since I was at school had I looked so closely at wild flowers, and I soon discovered that in the intervening years, I had forgotten many of the names. I may say, that none of the counts was in any way exhaustive, for I counted only these flowers, showing their colour, which I could recognise as I walked fairly briskly along the road. The count rose to 57 in mid-June, to 66 at the end of June, and peaked at 74 at the end of July and beginning of August.
I was somewhat surprised at the late peak, for I had always imagined that most flowers could be found in late June, around mid-summer. I was also surprised at the length of flowering period of some some of the plants, for, featuring in all the counts, as well as the expected daisy and dandelion, were herb Robert, red campion and tormentil.
Because wild flower gathering was always an end of session, June time occupation, when I was a child in school, I am more familiar with the spring and early summer flowers, and can name most of these; but over the past summer, I have become more at home with the hawkweeds, thistles and knapweeds of the later summer.
I hope to do a proper survey next year, identifying the varieties found each month, and noting the length of flowering period. This will be very much an amateur project, for I have no great knowledge of the subject, and hope for assistance in identifying species when I need it, for I have found that illustrations in books rarely really resemble the actual plants.
I know that many other varieties of plant can be found just outwith this chosen walking area For instance, the mouse-ear hawkweed grows on the wall of Kilkerran graveyard, between my home and the town, and I have not seen it beyond my home; but since I walk that three mile stretch of road so often, it seems best to confine my survey to that stretch.
Any help offered will be much appreciated, and I hope to write more on this subject in the Autumn of 1997.
No 41 Spring 1997
Page 2: Campbeltown Whalers
Page 3: Franciscan Converts in Kintyre - Part 1
Page 4: Mr. Macslimun - Clydeside Cameos
Page 5: Military Echoes
Page 7: James Watt at Campbeltown - Part 1
Page 8: By Hill and Shore - Part 1
Page 9: The Screws