canberrabirds

Highlights

To: "canberrabirds" <>
Subject: Highlights
From: "Geoffrey Dabb" <>
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 12:44:37 +1100
I spent a few days over Christmas on a  farm overlooking an Irish-green valley on the northern outskirts of Maleny.  Coucals could be often heard, and I would watch a pair playing on a green slope where re-emerging lantana was pushing up through the lush pasture grass.  I suspect they had their nest nearby.  Whenever I come across these birds they remind me of the savannah country around Port Moresby, where they would frequently emerge from the kunai to flap pheasant-like along or across the yellow gravel roads, perhaps the most conspicuous birds of the coastal plain.
 
Koels were also present around the Maleny hills in some numbers, as I'm sure they are now around most of the greener areas of eastern Australia.  The mad cry of these birds echoed throughout the day.   I have read that the British in India called this the 'Brain-fever Bird', but only in those parts of the sub-continent where the true Brain-fever Bird, a smaller cuckoo, Cuculus varius, was not found.  I have been told that the Brisbane suburb Toowong was named for the cry of the Koel, although someone else has suggested to me that the responsible bird was, rather, the Rufous Whistler. 
 
My experience, trivial though it might seem, was early on the morning of Boxing Day when I was inspecting the Silky Oaks growing around the horse exercise yard.  I noticed a coucal leap up onto a lower branch with a flurry of  tawny and chestnut wings, and then hop upwards from branch to branch in the manner of Harry, our street-peacock.   It perched near the top and uttered its unlikely wobble-board call.  Just then a koel flew into the same tree and gave voice.  The call of each bird was echoed by its respective rival from down in the valley, and both replied in turn.
 
There was something about those two noisy cuckoos in the one tree, as long as they were there, that demanded attention.  I find cuckoos to be like that, and there are some other birds - raptors, cranes and owls for example - that have what might be called a presence, unlike parrots, honeyeaters and finches that, however rare or interesting, are usually just passing by. 
 
      
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