birding-aus

Cacaphonous Christmas and Noisy New Year

To: <>
Subject: Cacaphonous Christmas and Noisy New Year
From: "Michael Hunter" <>
Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 18:28:48 +1100
Hi All.

        Our tranquil holiday at Avoca Beach in the Basin has been terribly 
disrupted by the far-carrying, piercing, human-baby like screams and begging of 
two fledgling Channel-billed Cuckoos, morning and afternoon, letting up for 
only an hour or two in the middle of the day. Plus up to five, raucous, adult 
CBCs and angry pursuing Currawongs and Noisy Miners flying through the trees.

       The young CBCs are carrying on as I type, they sound like a desperate 
human child being strangled very noisily. Their step-parent Currawongs are 
frantically trying to shut them up, but even feeding them every four or five 
minutes is not enough. The "babies" are fully fledged and flying, follow their 
feeders from tree to tree, at one stage a Currawong was chased along Fairscene 
Crescent at full speed by one of the "chicks", I still hear one of them 
hundreds of metres away, but it keeps coming back. 

       Today is New Years Day, and this has been going on since Christmas Eve. 
The squawking is unignorable. Even on overcast and rainy days we are driven 
out, to walk away along the beach, or go shopping just to get away from the 
noise. 

         Plus begging Magpie babies,young King Parrots chasing and abusing 
their parents around the block after being abandoned to the big wide world. .

        At about five in the afternoon the local SC Cockatoos add their bit for 
about an hour.

        Noisy Miners are a constant, but so relatively low decibel as to be  
totally unobtrusive. A couple of Satin Bowerbirds growl around and add 
interest. A Scrub Turkey lives in our jungle.(garden), flies up onto the 
verandah looking for leftovers. A beautiful bird, black body, bright red head 
and very yellow wattle around its neck. The Dollarbird looks good too.

         Two competing Kookaburra choruses wake us at what they think is dawn, 
and, the dreaded black night bird Eudynamys scoloacea, also known, among many 
expletives, as the Common Koel, is out there as well, day and night. I can hear 
it right now.. Fortunately it has been cool enough to keep the windows closed 
at night, not that it makes much difference. My wife actually uses her 
earplugs,(left over from when I used to snore) to try to sleep in.,

          An ornithologically unforgettable festive season.  

                                   Cheers

                                       Michael.

       (Avoca Beach is on the Central Coast of NSW)                             
                                
        
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