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Young Channel-billed Cuckoo fed by a currawong
A plaintive caterwauling drew my attention to the treetops this morning. A large bird sat high in a tree, calling and flapping its wings. It was a juvenile Channel-billed Cuckoo, waiting to be fed. As I watched, the adoptive parent arrived: a currawong. The currawong stuffed some food down the baby’s throat:
The baby cuckoo is already larger than its adoptive parent. Channel-billed Cuckoos are very large birds. In fact, they’re the largest of all parasitic birds. The body of the adult is more than half a metre long, and the wingspan is almost a metre. As the term parasitic implies, the cuckoo parents lay their eggs in the nests of other birds—in this case, a currawong’s nest—and the hapless host then raises the cuckoo chick.
In the next video, the young cuckoo is more restful, which gives you a chance to see its colouring. The very young birds have yellowish and brown colouring, whereas adults are light grey and dark grey. This youngster is close to adult colouring, but you can still see yellow here and there. The chirping noise that you hear throughout is the cicada beetles that rule the bush at this time of year.
Near the start of the video, the bird takes a sudden dislike to a dead twig nearby. Who knows why. Perhaps the bird is bored. Then a Noisy Miner arrives to alleviate the boredom. Noisy Miners, also known as Australian Miners, are noisy, as you may have guessed. They broadcast an alert whenever anything unusual appears in their territory. The young cuckoo reacts with alarm. In the nick of time, the host currawong arrives with another tasty treat.
I noticed that the currawong retreats hastily after delivering each morsel of food, and the cuckoo gives chase. I’d probably retreat too if my baby were that size!
Here’s a still photo of the young cuckoo. It’s eyes have not yet reached the dramatic red of the adult Channel-billed Cuckoo:
Bits of yellow and brown are still visible in the feathers, but this young ‘un has nearly attained the grey colouring of the adult.
The next photo gives a good view of the youngster’s tail, which looks to be fully developed. I saw the bird flying from tree to tree, and it did a very good job of it. It will need its flying skills in a few weeks’ time, as these cuckoos are migratory. They come down the eastern coast of Australia in spring, around September, then fly back up north to Indonesia and other islands around March.
To see more pics and videos of these cuckoos, and to hear the horrendous noise the adults make, check out my list of cuckoo posts.
Common name: Channel-billed Cuckoo
Scientific name: Scythrops novaehollandiae
Approximate length: 58-65 cm
Date spotted: 25 January 2020 (summer)
Location: Manly Dam Reserve, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’59.6″S 151°15’15.5″E
Australian Magpie singing
This young Australian Magpie dropped in to sing me a song! I think it’s a juvenile, as its eyes are brownish rather than red. It may be a female, as males tend to have a clearer demarcation between the black and the white sections of feathers, whereas females have more grey. But the colouring could be due to the bird being a juvenile.
The magpie spent at least ten minutes minutes singing, maybe more. I had time to grab my camera, make my way into the garden, film a few minutes from far away, then walk up and sit down near the bird and film again. This video is the result of the second set of filming.
Cool fact: Evidently magpies can hear the sounds of grubs and worms moving underground.
Common name: Australian Magpie
Scientific name: Gymnorhina tibicen
Approximate length: 40 cm
Date spotted: 6 January 2020 (summer)
Location: Near Sydney, Australia
Scruffy Channel-billed Cuckoo
Are you often woken up in the early hours of the summer morning by a hoarse hooting noise? It sounds like giants boasting about a joke they’ve played on the world. The call puts the Kookaburras to shame, in terms of melody (lack thereof) and loudness (excess thereof).
That noise is made by the Channel-billed Cuckoos. One of my earlier posts has a recording of the call. This picture shows a rather scruffy-looking example of these birds. It’s probably spent the night out on the town:
Channel-billed Cuckoos spend the winter in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, then migrate southwards to Australia for the summer. We see them in the Sydney area from September through to March each year. The first time I hear their raucous call, I know that spring has arrived.
Like many cuckoos, these birds lay their eggs in the nest of another species. Often, the parent cuckoo breaks the eggs of the host birds. When the young cuckoo hatches, the luckless host parents then feed and protect the cuckoo chick until it’s ready to leave the nest.
Channel-billed Cuckoos are large birds. Their appearance matches their call: Take no nonsense from no-one. Here’s a view of the bird’s head in profile, with that impressive red eye and hooked beak:
To see more pics and videos, check out my list of cuckoo posts.
Common name: Channel-billed Cuckoo
Scientific name: Scythrops novaehollandiae
Approximate length: 58-65 cm
Date spotted: 28 December 2019 (summer)
Location: Manly Dam Reserve, New South Wales, Australia: 33°47’00.6″S 151°15’10.1″E
Crested Pigeon doing what pigeons do
This pretty little Crested Pigeon isn’t doing much. It’s pecking at food, as pigeons do. But I found the colouring of the scene attractive:
Common name: Crested Pigeon
Scientific name: Ocyphaps lophotes
Approximate length: 31-35 cm
Date spotted: 26 December 2019 (summer)
Location: Long Reef Headland, Collaroy, New South Wales, Australia: 33°44’37.0″S 151°18’20.2″E
Dollarbirds are in town again
Dollarbirds are migratory, coming down to the Sydney area for the summer months after wintering on islands further north. I spotted this one this morning, perched high on a dead tree:
The Dollarbird was behaving exactly as my bird book says it’s supposed to behave. They typically sit high up on a dead branch and watch for insects to catch.
My photos are a little fuzzy, alas, because the bird was so far away and my camera wason maximum zoom. Luckily it’s quite a large bird, at approximately 30 centimetres from head to tail, which makes it easier to spot.
Here’s a picture of the front of the bird, showing some of its blue/green colouring:
Its throat is a lovely purple colour:
The next bit amused me. The bird was grooming, and seemed surprised and even a little piqued when a feather escaped:
The Dollarbird gets its name from the white patches on its wings, which look like silver dollar coins when the bird is flying. Here you can see a bit of the white patch as the bird stretches its wing:
As well as the white patch, this photo shows the feathers on its back nicely:
In this short video clip, you see the flashes of white on the wings as the Dollarbird flies off:
Dollarbirds make a strange, insistent chattering noise. I didn’t catch this one in a noisy mood, but you can hear another Dollarbird in my post from five years ago. Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve seen one of these birds!
Common name: Dollarbird
Scientific name: Eurystomus orientalis
Approximate length: 30 cm
Date spotted: 14 December 2019 (summer)
Location: Manly Dam Reserve, New South Wales, Australia: 33°47’02.2″S 151°15’18.3″E
Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo calling while keeping a lookout
Yesterday I saw a group of four Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos. I love coming across these large birds, as they impart a feeling of calm and grace. I took a video of the bird that seemed to be the designated lookout, sitting on a branch while the others foraged on the ground. You can hear the eerie call that the bird makes. It sounds rather like a door opening on rusty hinges!
Common name: Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo
Scientific name: Calyptorhynchus funereus
Approximate length: 65 cm
Date spotted: 9 November 2019 (spring)
Location: Manly Dam Reserve, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’40.0″S 151°14’50.2″E
White-cheeked Honeyeaters and New Holland Honeyeaters hanging out together
Until today, I didn’t realise that we have two very similar types of honeyeaters in the area. I’ve seen and photographed New Holland Honeyeaters before. Yesterday, I took some photos of a number of birds, thinking they were all the same type.
Looking at the photos today, I noticed that some birds in the group have black eyes, some white, and the black-eyed birds seem shorter and more compact than the others. It turns out that the group included White-cheeked Honeyeaters, which I haven’t knowing seen before. They’ve probably been around all along, but I just didn’t notice.
This is a New Holland Honeyeater. Notice the white eye, and the smallish white patch near the beak:
Another New Holland Honeyeater:
Whereas the next one is a White-cheeked Honeyeater. Notice the black eye and the large white patch on the cheek:
This video shows a couple of White-cheeked Honeyeaters. You can hear the calls of the other birds around them:
While I was watching the group of birds, they would all hang out together in their chosen area of bushy cover, then emerge to go foraging in the nearby trees. Every now and then, something would alarm them, and they’d all dive for cover again. Standing near them was a little alarming, as they move extremely fast and I could hear them hitting the leaves all around. After a few moments, they’d emerge and repeat the pattern. The next video shows one such episode:
Common name: White-cheeked Honeyeaters and New Holland Honeyeaters
Scientific name: Phylidonyris nigra and Phylidonyris novaehollandiae
Approximate length: 16-19 cm and 17-19 cm
Date spotted: 9 November 2019 (spring)
Location: Manly Dam Reserve, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’55.8″S 151°15’26.2″E
The strange case of the hooded Variegated Fairy-wren
I spotted this bird at Manly Dam this morning. It’s a female Variegated Fairy-wren, cunningly positioned half in shadow to give itself a dark grey hood. I was excited, thinking I may have found a very unusual bird, until I realised what was happening!
Common name: Variegated Fairy-wren
Scientific name: Malurus lamberti
Approximate length: 13 cm
Date spotted: 3 November 2019 (spring)
Location: Manly Dam Reserve, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’44.8″S 151°14’57.9″E
Rescued a Powerful Owl from Australian Ravens
As I was walking in the bush this morning, I heard a lot of noise coming from an open space just off the track. Currawongs chiming, ravens yowling, miners bleating. I went to investigate, and found a Powerful Owl under attack.
Here’s the Powerful Owl, looking decidedly jaded after facing off the most recent jabs from a couple of Australian Ravens:
The Australian Miners and Currawongs were making a lot of noise, and even a couple of kookaburras swooped in to join the fight. But the principal attackers were the Australian Ravens.
At first, the Powerful Owl was able to fend off the attack:
But the ravens were pretty vicious. The owl was high in the tree at this point, and there was nothing I could do to scare off the attackers.
I phoned the Manly Dam bush ranger centre and reported the problem. A ranger promised to come immediately. In the meantime, the owl was suffering and it was distressing not to be able to help:
At last, the owl ceded ground and flew to a lower spot in the tree:
At the same time, the attacks became more vicious, with the ravens grabbing both wings and pulling at the same time, stretching out the owl’s wings.
The owl was at this point only about 2.5 metres above the ground. A jogger came rushing in to help, and together she and I were able to scare off the ravens and other attackers.
The bush ranger arrived soon afterwards. After a bit of discussion, we decided the best thing was to phone WIRES for advice. WIRES is the Australian Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service.
In the meantime, we had to keep chasing away the ravens. They were extremely persistent, returning every few minutes to see if the coast was clear for another attack. The owl looked on, more relaxed than when under attack, but still alert:
Common name: Powerful Owl
Scientific name: Ninox strenua
Approximate length: 65 cm
Date spotted: 7 October 2019 (spring)
Location: Manly Dam National Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’55.8″S 151°15’12.1″E
The advice from WIRES was to leave the owl where it was (don’t try to scare it into flying away) and to keep chasing away the ravens. Evidently Powerful Owls tend to stay in one place during the day, even when under attack. Besides which, the jogger had seen the owl flying from one tree to another earlier that morning, with the ravens dive-bombing it in flight. So flying off was probably not a good option anyway.
So we kept chasing away the ravens. After a couple of hours, two families arrived and settled in for a day of boating and picnicking. We handed over the job of raven-scaring to them, and the bush ranger said she would drop by every couple of hours to check up on the owl.
Not a restful day for this nocturnal bird. But at least this is one case where it was a good thing for the bird that people were around. I do hope the Powerful Owl had a more peaceful time for the rest of the day.
Call of the Pale-yellow Robin is a bit dull
From high above the bush path came an insistent cheep-cheeping. After a bit of searching amongst the swaying branches (it was a windy day) I spotted the noise-maker: a Pale-yellow Robin:
Pale-yellow Robins are very similar in appearance to Eastern Yellow Robins. I’ve seen a few of the latter (see all my robin posts) but if my identification is right then this is the first time I’ve spotted a Pale-yellow Robin. Pale-yellows are smaller than Eastern Yellows (12 cm in length as opposed to 15) and have more white around the beak and throat. My bird book says they’re sedentary and common. They like rainforest and dense eucalypt forests.
Common name: Pale-yellow Robin
Scientific name: Tregellasia capito
Approximate length: 12 cm
Date spotted: 7 September 2019 (early spring)
Location: Manly Dam National Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’27.0″S 151°15’01.5″E
Sydney Birder 