Thursley Common: May/June

Amazingly Colin the Cuckoo returned again this year, for his sixth season. Despite the initial lockdown restrictions, and then a bad fire on the Common, with limited other opportunities I visited him on four different dates. My first was on 21 May shortly after the lockdown eased to allow non-local travel (thanks to the Early Birder for the heads up that he was present again) and my last was on 11 June - just a few days before he departed.

I had varying levels of success during these visits, but every one was different, with a variety of weather conditions (from harsh all sun/heat to much cooler, overcast conditions). My first visit was an all day 10-hr marathon, after which I decided on shorter visits starting at around 3pm, to include the key period immediately before any sun moved off the perch.

Here is a selection of the photos I obtained on these visits. For more info on each visit, click here.

For a gallery of all my shots, at higher resolution go to my website page.