Cuckoo on a cold spring morning.
23rd April 2017
In my previous blog post I mentioned that Susan and I had seen a male Cuckoo on an upland site in the Beacons. After seeing him and getting a quick shot while having a coffee in the car. I decided to try and see him again and I came back very early yesterday morning.
In this area Cuckoos favour upland sites as opposed to the marshes and other lowland areas in other parts of the country. They obviously choose Meadow Pipits as the surrogate parents for their young.
Unfortunately it can still be very cold on these upland areas in April and even in May sometimes. Yesterday exemplified this as a bitter wind blew early on and I was really feeling it despite having four layers on. I tucked in low under a copse of trees with a hat, scarf and gloves on and just waited.
This male bird is an early arrival because I don’t normally see Cuckoos until late April or early May and indeed most of my photos of them are in May and June. I was positioned right by where he had been perching previously and like most birds Cuckoos have their favourite areas and indeed perches, be it a post or branch etc.
It’s just a matter of being patient and if you have done your homework hopefully your waiting time will be reduced, especially in a cold wind!
After some time he was back in his area and I could see him perching on the branches of a hawthorn tree. However, he was obscured by a tangle of small branches so I had to wait, it’s no good moving around to get a better angle because Cuckoos are very wary and he would have flown off immediately. Experience with these birds dictates that you must be patient if you want any sort of shot.
Slowly but surely he made his way out onto a favoured branch and I shot him immediately,
he was a bit further away than I would have liked but more opportunities may come as the spring progresses. He didn’t stay long and he was moving around and calling from various perches as the morning went on. I came out from under the trees and moved around myself as the morning warmed up. I was walking back to my car and I could now see him perched on a branch seemingly enjoying the now pleasant sunshine.
These birds obviously feel the cold, wouldn’t you if you had just come from Africa?
He is not being harassed by small birds at the moment but that will come as they build their nests and that is when sometimes photographs can be obtained. The Cuckoos fly around to escape these birds and sometimes they will perch quite close to a birder/photographer in their efforts to escape.
I will be checking my preferred upland sites more frequently as the spring evolves in the hope of seeing more of these charismatic birds.
In this area Cuckoos favour upland sites as opposed to the marshes and other lowland areas in other parts of the country. They obviously choose Meadow Pipits as the surrogate parents for their young.
Unfortunately it can still be very cold on these upland areas in April and even in May sometimes. Yesterday exemplified this as a bitter wind blew early on and I was really feeling it despite having four layers on. I tucked in low under a copse of trees with a hat, scarf and gloves on and just waited.
This male bird is an early arrival because I don’t normally see Cuckoos until late April or early May and indeed most of my photos of them are in May and June. I was positioned right by where he had been perching previously and like most birds Cuckoos have their favourite areas and indeed perches, be it a post or branch etc.
It’s just a matter of being patient and if you have done your homework hopefully your waiting time will be reduced, especially in a cold wind!
After some time he was back in his area and I could see him perching on the branches of a hawthorn tree. However, he was obscured by a tangle of small branches so I had to wait, it’s no good moving around to get a better angle because Cuckoos are very wary and he would have flown off immediately. Experience with these birds dictates that you must be patient if you want any sort of shot.
Slowly but surely he made his way out onto a favoured branch and I shot him immediately,
he was a bit further away than I would have liked but more opportunities may come as the spring progresses. He didn’t stay long and he was moving around and calling from various perches as the morning went on. I came out from under the trees and moved around myself as the morning warmed up. I was walking back to my car and I could now see him perched on a branch seemingly enjoying the now pleasant sunshine.
These birds obviously feel the cold, wouldn’t you if you had just come from Africa?
He is not being harassed by small birds at the moment but that will come as they build their nests and that is when sometimes photographs can be obtained. The Cuckoos fly around to escape these birds and sometimes they will perch quite close to a birder/photographer in their efforts to escape.
I will be checking my preferred upland sites more frequently as the spring evolves in the hope of seeing more of these charismatic birds.