Hi Russell & other birders
I think that we when think of cuckoos and their hosts that we let
ourselves get set into the northern hemisphere time frame of cuckoos
arriving in spring! However this is Australia and the resident small
passerines of south eastern Australia commence breeding following the
lengthening of the daylight period and not because it is spring ie
September to November. The common hosts of the Shining & Horsfield's
Bronze-cuckoos and the Fan-tailed Cuckoos ie Brown Thornbill,
fairy-wrens, Yellow-rumped & Striated Thornbills, White-browed
Scrub-wrens etc all commence nesting in July-August which means that
these three cuckoos have to be on hand or they may miss out on the first
nesting bouts! It is my experience & understanding that the two
bronze-cuckoos and the Fan-tailed Cuckoo leave the breeding areas about
January for their inland and or northern wanderings but are back on the
breeding grounds (at least in the lower altitudes) by June to July ready
to commence the next breeding cycle. Hence they are not "over wintering"
at all those places being mentioned by various Birding-aus members, but
rarther are in those locations spying out the land ready for the local
hosts to commence breeding! Pallid Cuckoos definately arrive later like
August/September which probably co-incides with the commence of breeding
of their main hosts, while the Brush Cuckoo is a definate "spring"
migrant whose main hosts like Fantails & Myiagra Flycatchers are late
nesters too. The Little Bronze-Cuckoo, whose main host in NSW is the
White-throated Gerygone arrives about a month after (Sep/Oct) the WTG
arrive in the coastal forests in Aug/Sep.My personal records since the
mid 1960s show that in east central NSW the bronze-cuckoos are least
observed February to May, but where they go is not known!.
Alan Morris
NSWFOC Records Officer
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