Badger Galore
Staying ‘Up Over’ for a while.
A quick trip away.
So...we have been down to the river for a couple of nights this week...
Fine feathered friends.
Just a few feathered visitors who popped by today...
Give it a rest!
So...for the last two days we have been tormented by a constant, screeching bird call. I thought it was a young magpie begging for food from its parents. It wasn't a magpie but it was a juvenile bird persistently calling to be fed. It turned out to be a young Channel-billed Cuckoo.
The Channel-billed Cuckoo is the largest cuckoo in the World. They can grow up to 70 cm in length and can have a wingspan of over a metre. The adults migrate from New Guinea and Indonesia down the east coast of Australia where the females lay eggs in the nests of other birds, usually those of Magpies, Ravens, Butcher Birds and Currawongs. The young cuckoo does not push the other eggs or chicks out of the nest but tends to monopolise the attention of the host parents and the other fledglings usually starve.
Our young Channel-billed Cuckoo was being fed by a pair of Currawongs that were half its size.
