Sir, – The cuckoo winters in central Africa and returns to Ireland from April to August. During the next few weeks the distinctive cuckoo call will be heard in woodland edges, marshes and moorlands. The cuckoo is a solitary bird, more often heard than seen. She couldn’t be bothered building a nest but lays her eggs in the nests of small birds with precision timing. Once hatched, the cuckoo chicks eject the legitimate occupants and are fed by the unsuspecting foster parents.
This freeloading bird causes havoc in the bird world. Unfortunately, folklore has it that the rest of us pay the price for the cuckoo’s misdeeds with Mother Nature inflicting Scaraveen on us.
Scaraveen – in Irish, garbh shion na gcuach – the rough weather of the cuckoo, occurs between mid-April and mid-May, when mild spring weather has been known to revert to cold, wet miserable weather, more typical of winter.
The folk adage, “April and May keep out of the sea, June and July swim ‘til you die”, is also down to the cuckoo, the apparent harbinger of Scaraveen.
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Although she is an infamous avian parasite, I think the much-maligned cuckoo is an innocent party where bad weather is concerned.
Irish weather is so unpredictable that rough weather can occur anytime. Furthermore, the therapeutic benefits of the iodine discharged into the sea from seaweed and carrageen moss in early spring makes sea swimming during April and May well worth the risk! – Yours, etc,
BILLY RYLE,
Tralee,
Co Kerry.