The Cuckoo

Thursley Common nature reserve in Surrey is a brilliant area, made up of heathland, bogs and woodland. During spring it comes alive with many birds returning to breed, like Redstarts, Curlews, various warblers and many others. But one reason that makes this reserve such a fantastic place to me is that it is one of the few last places not too far from home that is home to Cuckoo’s. Their sound alone signifies spring to me and I’m always exited hearing the first one.

There has been one particular individual Cuckoo that has became well known for quite a few years, it has returned to breed and became very obliging among human presence. We visited the area a few times during the spring and found several Cuckoo’s but there was one afternoon where this one put on quite a display.

It’s very rare that I would have more than a few minutes photographing a particularly elusive or scarce species, but the Cuckoo showed for around forty minutes for the group of photographers present! I was able to try many angles, backgrounds and light. As my favourite shot (featured above) was backlit as the sun was just setting below the trees. When the cuckoo flew in to the perch there was a lot of excitement and I took many perched shots before it started to feed and fly back and forth to the perch.

Some of my favourite perching shots above, the first two are also with the sun behind it and the third is from the front as it flies in spooking off a Stonechat that was using the perch.

The Cuckoo showed down to only a few feet when it flew down to feed on the ground. I was laying on the ground so managed some nice low level shots, which isn’t a likely shot you’d expect to get of a Cuckoo.

The Cuckoo is one species that can be extremely wary of people, but this is an extraordinary example of one that has gotten used to human prescence. And what’s also helpful is that there is no paid photography hide required (which is often required to get good close shots of this species) and it’s a public nature reserve with many birds and other wildlife to see. I’ve had a few good Redstart encounters, which I will share on a future post. My target species for next year at this reserve is the Dartford Warbler which I have seen several times here and managed a few shots, but want to try and get something different and hopefully this same Cuckoo returns next year!