This week the elder flowers are ready for harvesting. My May ritual is burying my nose in a spray of flowers and inhaling the heady scent.  The smell is not universally appreciated but it has good associations for me with summer picnics and parties.

To be clear, I don’t pick the ones in the woods to make cordial, but use flowers from the bushes in our garden.

In the woods this morning I notice how different the white of elder is, creamy to almost pale yellow, from the white of hawthorn, with its rosy tint.  I sit on the bench with a my thermos of coffee – a treat in celebration of the slight relaxing of Lockdown – and revel in the white blossom.

I slightly drift off when something unexpected brings me back.  Was that a cuckoo?  I think I’ve heard one near the woods before but I’m always sceptical.  Could it have been someone doing a cuckoo impressions – which let’s face it is frankly cruel!  On this occasions the call continues for some time and is very precise.  I’m sure it’s not a collared dove – their calls are sometimes mistaken for cuckoos. I decide to keep an eye on social media to get corroboration.

Back home I go onto the BirdSpot website and check for sightings/hearings on their First Cuckoo page.  A cuckoo was first heard in Blackheath back in April so it is plausible as that’s not far at all.