THE ORB HAS SPOKEN: The Crowd Crowns the Cuckoo King of Birdsong, and the Nightingale Is Left Warbling in the Mist

Hush, dear seekers, and lean closer to the crystal. I lit the candles at dusk expecting a velvet song to rise from the smoke, the kind of trill poets have been swooning over for centuries. What came out instead was two notes. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. The spirits have picked their songbird, and it is the bird that lives inside your grandmother's clock.

The question put before the orb sounds simple enough: which bird has the most beautiful or distinctive voice? Five singers were called up. The nightingale, the robin, the mockingbird, the lyrebird and the cuckoo. On the opinion markets at Morfi, where people back their taste with real money, the cuckoo now sits on the throne with 35% consensus. The Common Nightingale, darling of every moonlit sonnet, trails on 28%.

Behind those two, the rest of the flock waits in the branches: 2 other sides. Bear in mind these figures measure how strongly the crowd believes, not a headcount. So far 31 traders have staked $74,952 on their ears, and trading opened less than a day ago. It's a young prophecy, and the tea leaves are still swirling. Even so, the cuckoo is ahead, and the nightingale is singing to an emptier room than it's used to.

Now Madame Odds gives her own reading, and it's only my opinion, sworn on the tarot deck. I think the cuckoo is winning because it's the one sound nobody can mistake. A nightingale is lovely, but you need moonlight, silence and a dictionary of adjectives to enjoy it. The cuckoo turns up and says its own name like a stage actor walking on to applause. Then there's the lyrebird, which can copy nearly anything it hears. I see it as the scorned genius of this tale, brilliant and still overlooked. The cards also show a bird famous for leaving its eggs in other birds' nests getting the crown. Don't call that a scandal, my darlings. Call it showbusiness.

What should you watch for? Whether the nightingale's loyal romantics wake up and cut into that lead, and whether the mockingbird or the lyrebird mounts a late, noisy comeback while the market is still young. The mist moves quickly in the first hours. If your ear says the orb has it wrong, come and join the market on Morfi and put your conviction where your songbird is. Cuckoo, cuckoo, my dears. The clock is ticking.