This is the best time to see and if you are lucky and have some knowledge of what it takes, the best time to photograph Cuckoos. I have been lucky this last few years but this year it has been hard work. I decided to put in a real shift yesterday and eventually it paid off with a great encounter involving both a male and the lovely female in the photographs. I first heard a cuckoo quite a distance away after waiting patiently for 7 hours, it had been that long between hearing one when I arrived and eventually hearing another – or the same one of course. It kept calling and then after a long while it was calling again but now much closer, I caught sight of it and made my way nearer with myself covered in cam netting. It was a male bird of course and it moved on without me getting close enough for a a good photograph but I could hear it further to my right. Then suddenly right where the male had been, there was a female and she was perched close now and I managed to get a shot or two as she flew down to feed. Success at last!