Going cuckoo

Well, as the sun had come out we thought we'd just nip along to Thursley again this evening to see if we could find the cuckoos. I wasn't expecting much but thought that there would always be the heron to fall back on. We set off from the car park following the directions the birder from yesterday had given us. It was quite a long way from the boardwalk area and we soon realised the directions (or out interpretation of them) hadn't been all that good. Then we happened upon a man out for a walk and, fortunately, he was a local who knew where the field was where the cuckoos hang out, which was in the opposite direction to the one we were going in.

Anyway, we made it to the field and knew it was the right place straight away as there was a line of people sitting down in the middle of it with cameras and long lenses. We stood and observed for a moment or two and then plucked up the courage to walk in. One of them said, "come and sit down" so we did and then we spent a lovely couple of hours sitting there, chatting with the others and taking loads of photographs of one of the cuckoos! The cuckoo was very tame and happily popped down to eat the grubs that were strategically placed on the strategically places perches.

We found out quite a lot about where to photograph other wildlife locally such as short-eared owls and kingfishers and also discovered that not only is Thursley one of the best places for dragonflies in the country but that they are preyed upon by hobbies. I can feel many more photographic excursions coming on!