An interesting sighting last week at Callum Brae. Initially a young Fan-tailed Cuckoo caught my eye and seemed to remain in the same area (where I happened to be resting) for some time. Finally I realised there were probably two. So
I took a dozen photographs and watched it/them for about 15 minutes, feeding and perching. Only one or eventually two were visible at a time. But checking photos later I was surprised to see that I had captured 5 different individuals.
There have been discussions of the post-fledging behaviour of cuckoos in Canberra, including whether parents hang around to check on their offspring (with some observations that they will indeed sometimes feed their own chick while it is
still under the care of its hosts), and also whether young birds team up with others or with biological parents or other adults for whatever reason (migration, company, mutual protection?). I haven’t heard of this number of young cuckoos keeping company before,
and wondering if it is actually unusual or not. From the observer’s point of view it would be easy to miss a similar gathering – mine was only noticed because I was stationary at the time for long enough to suspect more than one, and then took multiple photos.
Without the camera the count would have been 2, and if I had not been stationary, only 1.
The young birds covered a range of stages of development – a still gapy juvenile to a nearly grey-backed immature. The pics are arranged in order of eye-ring development. Differences may not show in these small images, but are clear at
full size.
It was an interesting day – also included photographing a Gould’s Wattled Bat (unconfirmed ID) hawking at midday over a dam, and flushing a Little Eagle from the ground about 60m ahead of me (and over a rise so I couldn’t see what it was
doing).
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Julian
