A 3 day trip to the Khao Yai National Park, 200 km from Bangkok. The target was the charismatic Coral-billed Ground Cuckoo which was reported to display behind the showers at the Pha Gluay Mai campsite. We have never seen this shy bird before despite trying 5-6 times.

At the scene we were also hoping to se more of the Blue Pitta which we got pix of last time. The Ground Cuckoo is much bigger though, 69cm in length and a 600mm lens will be too long. But for the Pitta the 600 is fine so I put 2 lenses in the hide, the 600 and the 300/2.8. It turned out to work very well. 300 was just perfect for the Ground Cuckoo. As usual we are picturing the birds in natural light without flash.

We arrived on Tuesday at 2pm, put up the tent and then went down to the scene behind the showers and put up the hides. When carrying the stuff down I noticed a Large Hawk-cuckoo in the trees and grabbed some frames of this raptor-looking cuckoo.
In the evening the Ground-cuckoo came down the slope and I tried to find him in the viewfinder but he was just gone. He must have seen the camera move and run away. I knew this is a shy bird, but he is very shy indeed. At least I've seen him and it's a fantastic bird! The BLue Pitta made a quick appearance too but moved though too fast for any pictures.

Next morning I was in the hide at 06:30 and the Ground Cuckoo showed up just 4 minutes later. This time I tried to be really careful when moving the lens but no, he saw it again and took off. I need to be even more careful. At 08:00 he came down the slope again, I got a snapshot but then he moved on and never came down to the scene. At least I didn't scare him off this time... The Pitta came twice to the scene and stay around 10 minutes each time.
In the afternoon we went to the waterfall further down the road from Pha Gluay Mai where several Ground Cuckoos has been displaying behind the restuarant. We didn't see any birds though and this was the second time we tried here without any result.

Thirsday we stayed all day behind the showers and was in the hides at 06:50 which was half an hour too late. Anyway just 5 minutes later the Ground Cucko showed up and this time he came down to the scene into a good position abour 12m away. I was moving the camera as slow as I could and this was working, he didn't mind. After grabbing a few frames in live view I checked the pictures and the bird was underexposed. I adjusted the settings but then some other photographers came down to the scene and the bird was scared away. During the day I saw the Ground Cuckoo 6 times and 3 times he came down to the scene, once at 2pm but the light was just terrible then. In the evening he was moving around the area during 15min and came down nicely in the target zone. Suddenly he took off running in an incredible speed right past my wifes hide. My wife said the White-rumped Shama chased him away! The Pitta showed up a couple of times, always a nice bird to see and we grabbed some more pictures of course.

On the last day we came down really early to the scene at 06:15 and had great hope to see the birds again. But nothing showed up at all. Some bird watchers and photographers came in at 7am and sat without hide up on the slope. This for sure would scare the Ground Cuckoo away since they were in the open and the Cuckoo usually comes in this way. At 10am we gave up, packed and went home.

Seeing the Blue Pitta was nice but the Coral-billed Ground Cuckoo was just something special, a real gem of the forest. Definitely worth spending time trying to see or photograph and we'll be back soon for this bird.