There it is again—that “Cuckoo!” sound from the forest. Eddie is trying to work out where it’s coming from. “Aha! It’s somewhere over there on the left,” he murmurs to himself as he hops from one blade of grass to the next towards the edge of the forest. He can’t wait to find out who is making this odd “Cuckoo!” call from the trees. Is it somebody calling for help, or is it just somebody playing a trick on him? And while he’s mulling it over, all of a sudden, a big brown bird swoops down, lands right in front of his nose and says…“Cuckoo!” Eddie is amazed. “Oh, it’s you that’s making that noise!” he laughs. “What noise?” asks the bird, puzzled. “That noise you were making…” replies Eddie. The bird looks at him, cocks her head a little to the left, and explains that this is her call, and her way of saying hello to other birds like her. And then she and Eddie sit down for a nice long chat. “From now on,” says Eddie, “I’ll call you by the sound you made when we first became friends: Cuckoo!” And with that, he bids the bird farewell and hops back to his field of flowers. 

When he gets there, he puffs up with pride as he tells the other insects about how he met his new friend. “You know, at first, I thought it was somebody speaking a language I’d never heard before! But then, when the bird told me what her call meant, we understood each other perfectly. She told me that she just doesn’t have time to build her own nest, so she lays her eggs in other birds’ nest and saves her energy for all of her “Cuckoo!” calling in the spring. She knows that this sound makes people happy, as it is always a sign that the world is getting warmer and sunnier again. Even though she doesn’t build her own nest, the cuckoo is actually a really nice bird, and brings a lot of joy during the first days of spring.”