Hi Martin and all
1. It's not "winter" in Melbourne - we never have a real winter, meaning a
time when nature stops to deal with the cold. I can't remember the
aboriginal word but for me it is "wattletime". Incidentally it was 20 in
the city last week.
2. I hope people will let me, or the list, or the atlases know the earliest
"urban" cuckoo dates this season.
Here's a summary of the records I know from SE Melbourne, especially
Bayside: :
Pallid: Jacqui Sheppard's Edithvale record on Birding-aus for 1 September
2002 is the earliest since 1952 when the area was mainly market gardens and
swamps. Back then there were records in July as well as August.
Fan-tailed: known to over-winter in the Melbourne region. Most recent July
date 4-1/7/1994. But, even going back to the 1950s no record in August
before the 15th. In last ten years arrived twice in late August: 26th and
27th.
Shining: first returns in last 10 years in August: 13, 24, 27, 29. In
early 1950s records on 2nd and 5th. No July records.
Horsefields: earliest first return 13/8/2001. Other August first dates
15/8/ 57, 17/8/97, 19/8/95.
So is Horsefields Bronze-cuckoo arriving earlier? From these data it appears
to be behaving differently from the other three species, all of which are
showing later arrival dates.
Michael Norris
PS. I think we are near the point where messages about spam turn into spam!!
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