It's been an interesting exchange on this ID. There was quite a bit of help and
comment off list as well but I think I can be confident that this was a
juvenile Brush Cuckoo. There has been one tentative vote for Pallid and one
vote for Common Koel but the overwhelming majority have flagged Brush as the
most likely.
Pallid was considered because the markings seemed like a Pallid although the
colour was wrong and the range is a much better fit than other candidates.
Pallid has been rulled out however, because of the colour and size relative to
the Willie Wagtail foster (something most respondents couldn't get from my
photos). My cuckoo was larger than the WW but not enormously so as a Pallid at
this stage would be.
Fan-tailed was ruled out very early on as the cuckoo I saw was much more
heavily and extensively marked than any pictures of juv FTs I could find and
lacked the gold eye ring. I have ruled out Common Koel by size, foster parent
and markings but the person who gave this opinion was quite confident and I
would be happy to hear further arguments for this ID.
Finally a word about the range. While the atlas at
http://www.birdata.com.au/homecontent.do shows a smattering of records in
Charleville and this part of SW Qld, it is also clear that this is not part of
the typical range for a Brush Cuckoo. This makes the fact that two Brush
Cuckoos, a male and female found one another out here and managed to
sucessfully parasitize a Willie Wagtail an unusual and interesting record. That
coupled with my sighting of an immature Baza no more than 20km away would
indicate that either eastern woodland birds are more common in the mallee
country, at least along well wooded rivers, than previously believed or that
the good wet in Qld this summer has allowed something of an irruption outside
of normal ranges for these kinds of birds. Comments?
BTW thanks very much to all who took the time to help puzzle this ID out. I
think it has been an interesting one and proves the value of this community for
individual and relatively novice birders to draw on a vast base of knowledge
out there.
Cheers Tony
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