Read Where Cuckoos Call for Free Online

broken. Carefully, I tucked it under my arm and headed back to Treetops.
    I have a large netting cage where sick birds can recover without being attacked by predators. I’ve had some successes, but I knew the godwit would not be one of them as I can’t fix broken wings. I placed it on the ground and stood preparing myself for what had to be done. When I had first started looking after birds, Dad would kill the badly injured ones. That stopped when he got sick. For a while I tried to save the no-hopers, only to watch them die a slow, horrible death. No animal should die like that. So I’d taught myself to kill them. It’s actually not physically hard to kill a bird. The problem is dealing with your emotions. Even after killing dozens of birds, I do not find it easy and hope I never will.
    The decision for the godwit was obvious. Even if I’d got the best vets in the world, it would still never make it back to Alaska. In three months’ time it would start a thirteen thousand kilometre journey to its breeding grounds. Only fitbirds finished that journey. At some stage over the vast Pacific, the scars of a broken wing would fail, and the bird would drop into the sea and drown. So, with an aching heart and moist eyes, I did what I had to do—I killed it.
    After burying six dead birds and twenty-seven eggs, I needed some good news. I checked my emails, hoping there might be a reply from Cole. There was.
Kia ora Ben,
    Why do hummingbirds hum?
    Because they don’t know the words.
    Hee, hee.
    Thanks for the email: you certainly have heaps happening in that wonderful bay of yours.
    Yes, selling the land for five million does create a problem. But it’s one that I’m happy to help you with.
    I’ll have a Porsche Carrera GT – that’ll take care of $800,000. A decent sort of boat will be another $500,000. Then I’ll need a car to tow it – something like a Rolls Royce Phantom at $700,000. That little trio should make a hole in the five million and help reduce some of your problems.
    But seriously, you say you don’t know whether to oppose the sale or not. I don’t think you have a choice. The way I see it, your parents considered selling only because your father is ill. If he gets better over the next year, then they might change their minds. Therefore The Goal in the short term is to help him get better. Opposing him certainly won’t do that.
    You sound as if you are against any development at Mansfield Bay, yet wouldn’t your research institute be a development? The way things are on the Coromandel, your bay is going to get developed sooner or later – why not work to get it developed in a way that doesn’t interfere with the birds? Just keep doing the things that you do, then, who knows, something good might come from it.
    I hope this helps. Keep me informed.
    That cuckoo of yours sounds great, but Ben, you really shouldn’t take that crap from it. Ha! Ha! Ha!
    Say:
    What’s invisible and smells like a worm?
    A cuckoo’s fart.
    Ka kite,
    Cole
    Once again Cole had cheered me up. He’d put into words things that I’d already been thinking: don’t upset Dad, keep looking after the birds, and hope that something would happen. Though what that could be, I had no idea.
    Plus his stupid jokes gave me an idea that could solve another problem: how to feed Bigmouth as she got bigger. She would soon need more than the egg mix. The books said her favourite food should be woolly bear caterpillars, but I hadn’t been able to find any. I think that the other cuckoos—maybe her mum and dad—had got them all. I knew she didn’t like earthworms, but Cole’s mention of worms made me remember that Americans call caterpillars worms, and that made me think of mealworms.
    One of our assignments for school had been to look aftersome mealworms. These are the grub of a beetle that lives in bran and they are really easy to keep. The school had sent us ten mealworms. We’d had to measure and sketch them every two days. Eventually,