Country diary: Every day the collared doves top and tail our waking hours

Sandy, Bedfordshire: They and their wood pigeon cousins chat incessantly, yet somehow almost never overlapLong after he had any conceivable chance of luring a mate, the cuckoo sang on. In midsummer week, he lulled me to sleep and stirred me awake the next morning. His abrupt ku-ku lacked the drag and mid-phrase pause of the typical cuckoo. I read desperation into his mispronounced insistency. Days later, a "normal" cuckoo call from the same spot. Had the errant bird self-corrected or was this a newcomer?All is quiet now, unfulfilled cuckoos bound for Africa, exhausted blackbirds out of melody. All apart from the drowsy high priests of summer. Every day, without fail, they top and tail our waking hours, a duo that never duets. Pigeon, dove, dove, pigeon. Though they rarely overlap or interrupt, each plays out its repetitious call and response, and enticements to others of its kind, seemingly without regard to its cousin. Continue reading...