Fan-tailed Cuckoo "Stalking" behaviour at Barren Grounds Nature Reserve

[Paul Sellers <>]

Thanks Philip. 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 on the Telstra Mobile network

-------- Original message --------
From: Philip Veerman <> 
Date: 17/11/2016 9:14 PM (GMT+10:00) 
To: 'Paul Sellers' <>, 
Subject: Fan-tailed Cuckoo "Stalking" behaviour at Barren Grounds Nature Reserve

Hi Paul,

 

May be just following a transect of a clearing in the forest. Sorry to try to be a bit sort of logical but if it was moving ahead of you and staying in front, that would hardly be it stalking you. More the other way. It could not know your next move, other than having learned from other walking people that they also follow the same path........

 

Philip

 

From: Paul Sellers [
Sent: Thursday, 17 November, 2016 6:09 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Fan-tailed Cuckoo "Stalking" behaviour at Barren Grounds Nature Reserve

 

Not in Canberra, but I’m sure Barren Grounds is visited by many of the members of this list. Admin please delete if it’s not appropriate.

I was walking Griffiths Trail this morning (Thursday 17-11-2016), the two kilometre stretch from the picnic area to the natural stone bridge,

and I observed behaviour that I’d never seen before by a Fan-tailed Cuckoo. It appeared in front of me, perched on a bare branch on the

side of the trail, and as I got within 10 metres or so, it would fly on about 30 metres, again landing on a bare branch where it could watch me,

then repeating the whole process. It kept pace with me for around 250 metres, then disappeared.  On a return trip (my target bird was the Beautiful Firetail, so I walked the two kilometre stretch backwards and forwards several times), the bird again suddenly appeared in front of me and kept pace with me for 300 metres, but only 50 of those metres were the same territory as on the first trip. This occurred a total of four times. Anybody seen similar behaviour?

Cheers Paul.