Phantom cuckoos?

Following our hearing many cuckoos in and around Dartmoor, I have been hearing cuckoo like noises here in Epsom. Typically first thing in the morning, say around 0600, when there is plenty of bird song generally.

We certainly used to hear cuckoos in the past at this time of year, with the birds presumably coming from the nearby Epsom Common, a mainly wooded habitat, not that different from the fringes of Dartmoor.

Some of the cuckoo-like noises are probably the fragments of the distant cooing of doves and pigeons, sharing their two beat rhythm at least with cuckoos - and the cuckoos are just phantoms, projected by the tweet-hopeful brain onto doves and pigeons. While some are probably ticks of some sort from inside the house, perhaps a dripping tap, with each drip associating to the second beat of the cuckoo.

But there remains a nagging doubt, a nagging possibility, that these noises really are cuckoos. We shall see if they get clearer in the days to come.