Cuckoos
They've arrived in Winmalee! I have heard the first Cuckoo of the season, coinciding with the clocks going forward for daylight saving.
These migratory birds capture my imagination as they seem to herald Summer and the long hot days that lie ahead. As I went to bed on Sunday night I heard the strident wailing love-call of a Cuckoo piercing the stillness of the night sky as he claimed his territory and sought to summon a mate.
They migrate all the way from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and, after mating, the female lays her eggs in the nest of a surrogate bird, generally a Currawong or Magpie. The large chicks monopolise the poor foster parents, demanding all the available food and edging the other chicks out of the nest.
I have not seen very many Cuckoos I only ever seem to hear them! They are as much the sound of the Australian bush as the Magpies and Whip birds.
This picture (right) is taken from The Australian Museum website. See link here
They like to eat native fruits and figs and sometimes insects.
This photo (left) is of a Channel-billed Cuckoo in a fig tree in Toowong, Queensland taken by Mick McKean.
Photo (right) of a Channel-billed Cuckoo taken by Keith Hutton.
They are noisy birds, but quite shy, often heard but not seen. They like to sit in the top of tall trees.
We have many tall trees in our backyard, so I shall be trying to catch one this Summer with the zoom on my camera!
This is a photo I took of a Cuckoo in a tree in our backyard in Winmalee in October, 2018. I do not think it is a Channel-billed Cuckoo. I posted the picture on instagram and one of my instagram friends identified it as a Koel, which is another name for a Cuckoo. This could be a female Pacific Koel also known as the Eastern Koel.
They do not like the cold weather, which is why they migrate back North for the Winter. The migration route is across the Torres Strait and from New Guinea they migrate across the nearby islands, as far as Timor and the Moluccas. They travel individually, or in small groups.
They delegate the raising of their chicks to other birds, to do the work for them! However, the female does hover around, ready to help feed her growing baby bird.
There are also Cuckoos in the Northern Hemisphere and they migrate to Africa during the European Summer. There is a beautiful poem by William Wordsworth called To the Cuckoo which can be found here
Acknowledgments:
1. The Australian Museum
2. Backyard Buddies
3. Wikipedia
4. Read & Co. Books
2 comments:
I know the call of the Koels (noisy things) but not the channel billed cuckoo. I have seen one of the Channel Billed Cuckoos in Burnbrae garden (ugly things).
I think their calls are similar. They are certainly very distinctive and noisy in their calls and I have often woken in the early hours of the morning hearing their loud plaintive mating call.
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