Walking along a shady path this morning, I heard a loud caterwauling from above. Two baby Channel-billed Cuckoos sat in the trees, yowling and shaking their wings. A Currawong arrived and fed a piece of meat to one of the cuckoos. Then another Currawong brought food to the second screeching youngster.

Like most cuckoos, Channel-billed Cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and leave it to those other birds to hatch the egg and look after the growing chick. These particular cuckoos are very large (around 65 cm from head to tail) and so they need to pick the adoptive parents carefully. Currawongs are the usual choice.

This video shows one of the babies yowling and begging for food from its Currawong adoptive parent:

See how large the baby is in relation to the Currawong who’s looking after it! In the next video, one of the babies attempts to eat a largish morsel of meat that a Currawong has just fed to it:

I’ve never seen two babies together before. I wonder if they both came from the same nest, or if they found each other after leaving their nests?

Here’s a still picture of one of the baby cuckoos:

Being a youngster, its eyes are still light brown. The adult birds have fierce red eyes. They’re magnificently ugly birds.

In the next picture, one of the babies is pointing its beak at the sky, perhaps wondering where its next feed is coming from:

That picture gives a good view of the bird’s large beak and the markings on its back and tail.

One of the things you notice about Channel-billed Cuckoos is the supple way they move their neck and head. Here’s one of the babies leaning forward, in a pose that’s typical of these birds:

Oo-er, you probably wouldn’t want to bump into that bird one dark night. Here’s a picture of both baby cuckoos, looking at each other:

To finish off with, here’s a close up of one of the babies, head and neck only:

You can find out more about these birds in my other posts about cuckoos.

Common name: Channel-billed Cuckoo
Scientific name: Scythrops novaehollandiae
Approximate length: 58-65 cm
Date spotted: 18 December 2021 (summer)
Location: Manly-to-Spit Walk, Balgowlah, New South Wales, Australia: 33°48’00.9″S 151°15’54.9″E