How do u feel when a cuckoo crows?

Spring is still a month away and beautiful voice of cuckoo is associated with the heralding of the spring season. I too used to wait longingly for this melodious voice coming from afar in rhythmic phases which gives one the feeling of intoxication. However, satirical as it may sound, from last year, cuckoo’s melody has become cacophonous to the ear. One sole cuckoo started frequenting the tree right near my bedroom since last year and wonder of wonders, it started crowing right from January in its incessant drawl. Initially it was a real treat to hear a cuckoo from such a close quarter as it is so rare now-a-days to hear this seasonal wonder. Initially, the bird used to come at a particular time of the day, and we were used to the rhythmic singing for a short span of time. However, as the days went by, the cuckoo broke it’s routine and started crowing at odd hours, disturbing our peace and tranquility. It would start crowing from 3 o'clock in the morning and would continue doing so till the wee hours in the morning. Sleep eluded us as it was impossible to sleep blissfully when cuckoo's singing at it's highest decibel invaded the tranquil night everyday, jolting us awake from deep slumber. However hard we try to drown the noise by stuffing pillows in our ears, it was of no avail. It had become such a curse that at one point I had some wild thought of bringing firecrackers to scare the bird away. But the least I did was throwing a stone wildly at the tree which had become the cuckoo's night abode. Although it helped give us some quiet moments, but it was short lived and the symphony started and continued unabated. And this misery of sleepless night is still continuing..

I have found out for the first time that most birds have certain enmity towards cuckoo and keep chasing it whenever they come across one. It is beyond my comprehension why a bird with a lovely voice should be hated by fellow birds and why it had to hide and make itself less visible from fellow birds. The enmity between cuckoo and crow is well known because cuckoo always kept their eggs in a crows nest during hatching time and the deceit is noticed by the crow only when the babies grow up. For this reason, crows and cuckoos are fast enemies but what about other birds?

This experience of mine is a bit funny and I wrote it from satirical point of view. For a nature lover, like me, cursing a cuckoo is the last thing i want myself to be associated with. But considering the number of sleepless night I had gone through, amazingly that was what I actually did! Now I know why cuckoo’s singing sounds sweeter when coming from afar. It gives a kind of spread effect and sounds like a symphony. From close quarters, the beauty of cuckoo's voice is lost.