Marc Anderson reported an early Shining Bronze-Cuckoo in Royal NP (near
Sydney NSW) on August 12th.
On Sunday August 8th, I showed two visiting Canadians around Wungong Gorge
and Bungendore State Forest on the SE outskirts of Perth WA. We found two
adult Shining Bronze-Cuckoos together near the lawn at Wungong and could
hear another maybe 100 metres away; we heard another down at the orchard
(about 1km away); and we heard one at Bungendore at the top of the hill.
There were also Fan-tailed Cuckoos present which can be expected, but I
can't remember seeing the Shining Bronze-Cuckoos this early before in the
south west. There were a lot of wildflowers in Bungendore which were also
several weeks early. A Spotted Pardalote was busy collecting nesting
material which I also thought was early. There was also a very young
Pacific Black Duck duckling on the creek at the orchard at Wungong, and we
heard Australian Shelduck and Pacific Black Duck at Bungendore. I haven't
recorded ducks at Bungendore before, so perhaps they were checking nesting
sites in the trees.
We had a very successful morning cleaning up on the local specialties
except for the two White-tailed Black-Cockatoos. These were Red-capped
Parrot, Western Rosella, Elegant Parrot, Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo (SW
forest race), Red-winged Fairy-wren, White-breasted Robin, Western Yellow
Robin, Red-eared Firetail, Western Thornbill, Western Spinebill, Little
Wattlebird (SW race), Rufous Treecreeper plus other good highlights of the
two cuckoos, Splendid Fairy-wren, Scarlet Robin, Varied Sittella, Common
Bronzewing, Western Gerygone, White-naped Honeyeater, Golden Whistler, etc.
Three weeks earlier I showed a visiting American to the same locations, and
we found a Western Thornbill building a nest behind the bark of a tree
(roughly 1 metre above the ground), which I thought was exceptionally
early. There were Fan-tailed Cuckoos present, but no sign of Shining
Bronze-Cuckoo.
Frank
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