Early morning and Cuckoo

On Friday, I took the bike up to Redmires reservoirs early in the morning to give it a go on finding the cuckoo and to get some pictures. The weather wasn't to bad either which helped :)
I arrived around 5:30 and the cuckoo was nowhere to find. Usually if its active you hear it straight away. Gladly, just half hour later I could hear it calling, which just means now I had to find where it is. It flies around lots, but by mimicking its calling you can get it to at least check out what you are. Lucky No other people were there :)) And the mimicking worked! I managed to get it curious so it flew past me many times during the morning.
The cuckoo is a bit special, as you might already know. It doesn't build its own nests at all, it lays an egg in a nest that already have eggs and preferably of small birds. It can adapt the color of its egg to the hosts! Then the female cuckoo takes away most of the hosts eggs from the nest, and leave its own egg to its fate. The female looking then for next nest and does this about 9 times. Amazing..... 
The birds that end up with a cuckoo's egg take care of it as its own, incubate it and feeds it when it hatch. I wonder what they think when the cuckoo chick grows into a much bigger chicks than they thought their would be :)
Now I'm off to Croatia for 2 weeks, to do some refurbishment on our summer house. Obviously the camera will be going with me!

See you in couple of weeks, Enjoy the summer!
                                                                       

 

 

Curlew

 

Cuckoo

 

Cuckoo

 

Cuckoo

 

Goldfinch

Bambi!!

On Monday, I was up to Redmires again and of course it was the owl that I wanted to get the picture.
Cycled there in the evening, for it is most often the owls come out to hunt. But not this evening, not what I saw in all cases, the area's large so it's probably hard to find them. But the evening gave good weather, partly cloudy with Sunbeams and warm. What I also noticed was that the small gnats had come, and they were everywhere and very hungry. Luckily I had the camonet that I could hide under.
And today I have been to a new place which is just 4 km away from me, has always wanted to go there to explore a bit so today I was there. It's a pretty big birch forest with steep rock walls, did not really know what I was hoping to run into. But once I got there I heard the cuckoo  which is always nice, so I was looking for it for a while. Cuckoo brought me into the forest full of fern-like plants, and they were quite high from 50-100cm. felt a bit like walking in a rainforest or something.
After a while I came up to the cliff edge and followed it for a couple of miles, while I was up here so I ran into hares, kestrel, cuckoo, pheasant, squirrel, woodpecker and some other few birds. After three hours I started getting hungry so I started walking towards the bike. But while I was walking through the dense ferns I saw something, that was a few meters away behind a small stone. It was a little Bambi :);) which pleased me since I have never been so close to a small roe deer kid, I wanted to of course do not scare it, but now I stood there, so I might as well take some photos of it. And it did not seem so afraid it was nice there and was also there when I left it. And something else that was nice in the woods was that there were rhododendron bushes in the forest that gave a nice splash of color there, a little unexpected to see that sort of thing.

Bambi :) Roe deer/rådjur

Cuckoo/Gök

Can u see me, oh yes i can ;)

Nice sunbeam

Sunbeam

Rhododendron in the forest

Fern

Nice colours

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Early morning with the cuckoo

On Monday, before I would take the car to the rental agency, I thought I'd like to take me to Redmires reservoir early in the morning.
The clock alarmed already 4:40 and after a quick sandwich, I was going.
The reason that I go away so early, is that I have seen the cuckoo appears to be active in the early morning.
Came out to the reservoirs around 5:00  down with the car window and immediately I heard the cuckoo, drove the car a little closer to the place where they appeared to be. Then it was just to go where the sounds came from, it was not easy to enter the place because it is fully open.
So they where scared of course, but I brought the camoflauge today so I went up to a hill near a tree where they used to land.
Pulled on me the camo and waited, it took maybe half an hour, and they were back, I sat about 6 m away from them.
One of the cuckoo came from behind and flew about 3 m above me laughing on their special way, then where I'm a little frightened was not quite prepared for it. :) :)
I spent about 4 hours to check out this pair, they flew away at times but always returned after a while. Unfortunately was the morning sun rise quite high before I got the first pictures of them and then it was against the sun also which is not really ideal. While I sat there under the camo, I saw something flying towards me, it looked like a bird of  prey.  but unfortunately it was too close before I could react.
So I took some pictures from behind only to identify it later when I'm home.
The bird was apparently a Short-eared Owl, it was sad to miss the photo opportunity, but now I know they're there.

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It was this one who came from behind and landed 6 m from me (male)

Female, listening for the camera shutter noice

Same female

The male sitting 60m away

It was not only cuckoo this morning (Reed Bunting/sävsparv)

Goldfinch/stegligts in morning light

I think the cuckoo is eaten these.

Some kind of moss flower.

 

Gök/Cuckoo

I was up to redmires to check if the cuckoo had come.
This time, I had a rental car so it felt great to go up 5.30. because you knew that you did not have the killer hill up there, not so fun to bike up there early morning when the body is barely working.
I arrived up at  6:00  And just after 15 minutes  I heard the cuckoo, so it was only to locate where it was. But unfortunately it remained at a distance, or rather, inside the sheep's enclosure which meant I could not get closer to them that moment.
But after half an hour they started to move, I say them because it was probably a female and male who were together.
Then it was just to try to predict where they would fly then, to try to get a good photo opportunity on them.
Managed to get them pretty close, about 25m away from them without camoflauge this time.
I was following them for about 3 h, which was nice, because during the hours it happened things all the time, they where constantly attacked by small birds, and they ate big fat worms which was fun to see.
 
Facts about the cuckoo: A guite large, long-winged, longtailed gray bird, the cuckoo in spring is familiar to everyone by its call, but not its appearence.
Voice: Familiar loud, bright cuc-coo coo-coo and laughing wha-wha-wha.
Nesting: Lays eggs in Other bird `s nests Usually nine eggs per female, 1 per nest; May-June.
Feeding: Drops to ground to pick up large caterpillar; Also eats small insects.

Flying cuckoo

Resting on a pole

Meadow pipit attacs the cuckoo

More attacs

The Female and Male

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