A trip over to Dartmoor National Park was planned for Mid June 2025.

From previous experience I knew of an area on Dartmoor National Park where I could possibly find and attempt to photograph the Cuckoo this very shy and elusive bird.

After parking the car and quickly grabbing my camera gear due to the fact that I had spotted an adult Cuckoo and a Juvenile Cuckoo close by in the area near the car park, I didn`t want to miss this oppurtunity, what a start to the day just seeing the birds in the locality, my confidence was high, I went into stealth mode with regards to covering my head, face, and body with Camo clothing it really helps in my opinion. It was now time for slow calm and steady movements towards the birds, two to three steps then stop stay low wait a while then repeat no sudden movements or they would take flight instantly, I was able to get reasonably close and then with no sudden movements gently raise the camera to my eye and focus on the adult bird, I was able to capture a few frames before the Cuckoo took to flight, once you point a camera and big lens towards them instinct kicks in and they go into survival mode and leave any potential danger behind them.

A quick look at the LCD screen on the rear of the camera and all was looking good, I did pursue the birds further when they dropped from the small trees and landed on the heather but at ground level they were even more tricky to approach even whilst crawling along on my knees, and much more difficult to capture a nice clean image with the heather masking the birds body, I did manage to capture some images of a male Stonechat also images posted below, more walkers/hikers had started to arrive now who would spook the birds away so it was time to pack the camera gear away and head back home, a wonderful day spent on Dartmoor National Park.

Stonechat maleStonechat singing perched on heather.