Re: Currawongs and Channel-billed Cuckoos

[Charles Hunter <>]

Hi all,

 

I've just come back from Pearl Beach on the NSW Central Coast (safe from the fires) where I had seen over several days a large juv. Channel-billed Cuckoo being fed by two Pied Currawongs.

 

To be honest it was quite a funny observation. The juvenile Channel-billed Cuckoo much larger than both "parents", screaming out constantly for more food, literally attacking one of the Currawongs when it was being fed.

 

On a number of occasions the Channel-billed Cuckoo was flying around in circles, obviously practising for its immanent flight north!

 

Regards,

Charles Hunter

Kings Cross, Sydney

Lesley & Michael Brooker <> wrote:

> Hi Birders,
>
> Whilst
>  Channel-billed Cuckoos most often lay only one egg per host nest, it 
> is not uncommon for them to lay two or even 3 in a nest. Goddard and 
> Marchant (Australian Birds 17:65-72) have published a table in which they 
> show some records of 5, 6, 7 and 8 cuckoo eggs in the nests of crows. Three 
> was the most they recorded in a Pied Currawongs nest. Salter (Bird Observer 
> 559) found a nest with "three channel-bills of different ages, the first one 
> leaving the nest three weeks before the last one. In 1977 the crows raised 
> two of their own species plus one channel-bill. The young crows left the 
> nest several weeks before the cuckoo.."
>
> Lesley Brooker
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