Tuesday 11 June 2019

Common Cuckoo

Common Cuckoo at Buckenham Marshes in Norfolk May 2019

The first photograph shows the fairly tame bird, which was often chased off by the more dominant, but much more nervous male (the lower photograph). They were both tempted by the larder of Brown-tailed Moth caterpillars there. The tame bird's visits were erratic and sometimes not for long, and annoyingly it would often feed obscured within the vegetation. I visited the site six times, for a total of about 22 hours. In that time the tame bird was present for an accumulative total of about half an hour, during most of which it was partially or mostly out of view. Occasionally it would pop up and allow itself to be photographed. I came away feeling I still had not quite got THE photograph. Thanks to Murray Smith for letting us know about the bird.