Cuckoo diaries.
21st May 2024
Cuckoos are enigmatic, period! That’s why it feels so satisfying when you get one in front of your lens. There’s always a sense of satisfaction about capturing such an awkward subject. To compound the issue females are far less photographed than males, almost all the images you see are of male birds and this is because a lot of people (photographers) know the males call but they don’t know the females call, and therefore they don’t realise they are there. The females call is totally different, a lot quieter and therefore far less carrying.
They say that every picture tells a story and the image below of a female has a story;
First story;
I was sat in my portable hide on a warm June day waiting for some Cuckoos I had been watching to hopefully perch in the bushes opposite. I was quite tired because I had been up early and to be truthful I was drifting in and out of sleep. Sitting in a comfortable chair in a hide with little happening can be quite soporific.
I had obviously drifted off because when I woke up I was looking up at the canvas roof of my hide. I quickly orientated myself and reached down for my flask of coffee and after pouring a cup I settled back into my vigil. However, I didn’t realise what had happened while I was asleep, because after about thirty seconds I could, unbelievably, see a Cuckoo perched in front of me and a female at that, staring over her shoulder right at me. She obviously knew there was something different nearby by the suspicious look on her face, but she couldn’t make out what it was.
I very slowly put my coffee cup into the dedicated cup holder in the arm of the chair in my hide and panned my lens extremely carefully until it was pointing at her. I fired the shutter and realised that most fortunately I had captured the image. She didn’t stay long after and I never saw her again.
That’s sometimes the pure luck of wildlife photography!!
One thing you will always see with female Cuckoos is their rufous neck and collar. Apart from their overall rusty colouration these areas are where the colour seems to be concentrated. Both male and female Cuckoos also have ten tail feathers which they frequently splay, as you can see in this image.
Second story;
A male bird I had been watching for a week was proving to be extremely wary and unapproachable. I had been at a particular site before daylight on a couple of occasions and I had been undercover and totally hidden near to what I had assessed was his favourite perch – Cuckoos are very faithful to particular perches and sooner or later they will return there. As the hours literally turned into days this bird was proving to be the exception, he wouldn’t return to this perch no matter what. I had a theory that he recognized my car, which was parked a couple of hundred yards away, as being something alien which he didn’t like.
Another morning I was walking across a very boggy area to where this perch was and my welly just sunk into the bog and I couldn’t remove it. I had to pull my leg out and stand in the wet bog in my sock – not pleasant! Fortunately I always keep a spare pair of socks in the boot of my car, so after extricating my welly, with huge difficulty, I returned to the car re-dressed and started back again, taking care to avoid the same wet area of bog.
I resumed my position under cover and waited, he started calling again, or more accurately taunting (you can’t get me ‘Woo Hoo’). I waited and waited but no luck, I abandoned to rethink my strategy.
The following day I decided to get deeper into the copse of trees to try and view ‘His perch’ from a different angle, this time there was no photography involved. I rigged up a very large ‘Camo net’ across some bushes with a hole cut in it which looked straight at the perch, some forty feet away.
The following morning I was back there in the dark, I parked my car further away up the road, (probably bordering on being neurotic), but I wasn’t taking any chances, I was not going to be seen. I settled down in the copse, sitting on my stool with sandwiches and coffee, no hide this time just Camo. My lens was pointing at one thing, his perch. I was in such a position that I couldn’t move to photograph anything else even if I wanted to.
Then he started again Cuckoo, Cuckoo, and then his usual flying around. He perched in the high trees above me just as before, this time though I was confident he didn’t know I was there. I could hear him making his usual noises that all Cuckoos make, gasps, croaks etc. Ten minutes passed and there was no movement, now I was beginning to doubt my covert activities had indeed been as successful as I thought. Then there was a lovely moment, he just fluttered down like some giant butterfly onto his perch, and this time he was caught in the trap, I didn’t move, I didn’t have to because I had an IR remote shutter release on my camera, the shutter fired and I had him. It was such a nice feeling to finally overcome an inordinately crafty opponent.
These stories exemplify that sometimes it’s just pure luck, but with others it’s a product of hard work, field craft and perseverance.
They say that every picture tells a story and the image below of a female has a story;
First story;
I was sat in my portable hide on a warm June day waiting for some Cuckoos I had been watching to hopefully perch in the bushes opposite. I was quite tired because I had been up early and to be truthful I was drifting in and out of sleep. Sitting in a comfortable chair in a hide with little happening can be quite soporific.
I had obviously drifted off because when I woke up I was looking up at the canvas roof of my hide. I quickly orientated myself and reached down for my flask of coffee and after pouring a cup I settled back into my vigil. However, I didn’t realise what had happened while I was asleep, because after about thirty seconds I could, unbelievably, see a Cuckoo perched in front of me and a female at that, staring over her shoulder right at me. She obviously knew there was something different nearby by the suspicious look on her face, but she couldn’t make out what it was.
I very slowly put my coffee cup into the dedicated cup holder in the arm of the chair in my hide and panned my lens extremely carefully until it was pointing at her. I fired the shutter and realised that most fortunately I had captured the image. She didn’t stay long after and I never saw her again.
That’s sometimes the pure luck of wildlife photography!!
One thing you will always see with female Cuckoos is their rufous neck and collar. Apart from their overall rusty colouration these areas are where the colour seems to be concentrated. Both male and female Cuckoos also have ten tail feathers which they frequently splay, as you can see in this image.
Second story;
A male bird I had been watching for a week was proving to be extremely wary and unapproachable. I had been at a particular site before daylight on a couple of occasions and I had been undercover and totally hidden near to what I had assessed was his favourite perch – Cuckoos are very faithful to particular perches and sooner or later they will return there. As the hours literally turned into days this bird was proving to be the exception, he wouldn’t return to this perch no matter what. I had a theory that he recognized my car, which was parked a couple of hundred yards away, as being something alien which he didn’t like.
Another morning I was walking across a very boggy area to where this perch was and my welly just sunk into the bog and I couldn’t remove it. I had to pull my leg out and stand in the wet bog in my sock – not pleasant! Fortunately I always keep a spare pair of socks in the boot of my car, so after extricating my welly, with huge difficulty, I returned to the car re-dressed and started back again, taking care to avoid the same wet area of bog.
I resumed my position under cover and waited, he started calling again, or more accurately taunting (you can’t get me ‘Woo Hoo’). I waited and waited but no luck, I abandoned to rethink my strategy.
The following day I decided to get deeper into the copse of trees to try and view ‘His perch’ from a different angle, this time there was no photography involved. I rigged up a very large ‘Camo net’ across some bushes with a hole cut in it which looked straight at the perch, some forty feet away.
The following morning I was back there in the dark, I parked my car further away up the road, (probably bordering on being neurotic), but I wasn’t taking any chances, I was not going to be seen. I settled down in the copse, sitting on my stool with sandwiches and coffee, no hide this time just Camo. My lens was pointing at one thing, his perch. I was in such a position that I couldn’t move to photograph anything else even if I wanted to.
Then he started again Cuckoo, Cuckoo, and then his usual flying around. He perched in the high trees above me just as before, this time though I was confident he didn’t know I was there. I could hear him making his usual noises that all Cuckoos make, gasps, croaks etc. Ten minutes passed and there was no movement, now I was beginning to doubt my covert activities had indeed been as successful as I thought. Then there was a lovely moment, he just fluttered down like some giant butterfly onto his perch, and this time he was caught in the trap, I didn’t move, I didn’t have to because I had an IR remote shutter release on my camera, the shutter fired and I had him. It was such a nice feeling to finally overcome an inordinately crafty opponent.
These stories exemplify that sometimes it’s just pure luck, but with others it’s a product of hard work, field craft and perseverance.