Hello Observers,
The other day I was doing something important with my computer when I heard a
Channel-billed cuckoo calling loudly near by.
As I rarely see these birds and only hear them a few times a year, I dashed out
side immediately.
>From my back door I saw a solitary Channel-billed Cuckoo flying at high speed
from west to east calling loudly as it was being pursued by two Torresian Crows.
The trio quickly disappeared from sight and after the noise had settled down I
was left wondering the following:
Did the Channel-billed's ruse work?
Did the cunning of the cuckoo triumph over the intelligence of the crow?
Did the crows smugly return to their nest, count the eggs and settle down
content in the knowledge that they had successfully protected their territory
against the dreaded cuckoos once again?
Did the cuckoo rendezvous with its mate and have a good chuckle over how the
crows had not noticed that the eggs they were now protecting were a bit bigger
and slightly differently coloured than they had been before this little episode
began?
Can we equate this little story with the battle between the property developers
(the cunning Channel-Billed Cuckoo) and the conservationists (the intelligent
crow)?
Bob Inglis
Woody point SEQld, Australia.
27 deg 15min S; 153 deg 5 min E
E-mail:
WWW: http://www.powerup.com.au/~inglisrc
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