20191109-MMPI0053 - Toowong Cemetery
On Saturday 9th November 2019 I strolled over to Toowong Cemetery at the end of my street in search of the Channel-billed Cuckoos that come south to breed at this time of year. Well they didn't disappoint, the big ugly brutes gorging themselves on the abundant red fruits on the big fig trees. The light was the best I've seen them in to this point, so while I still had to push up ISO on the camera a bit I managed to get my clearest shots of them yet. While they were my main quarry for the outing, I managed to bag four other interesting species that morning. First was a lovely female Leaden Flycatcher, I was alerted to her by the lovely call and found her catching caterpillars in trees with that distinctive tail waggle. Next was a small flock of at least eight Barred Cuckoo-shrikes, a very striking bird that I have only seen at the cemetery on a couple of separate occasions. I think of them as "jailbird" due to the contrasting black and white horizontal chest barring. Next was a male Pacific Koel, a bird I hear around my suburb and have chased around the nearby streets on many occasions without much success. With jet-black plumage and blood-red eye they are a beautiful bird, and their co-operative call with the female is often made before evening monsoonal rain which is why they are often known as the "storm bird". Like the Channel-billed Cuckoo they are parasitic nesters. The special for the day was the resident Brown Goshawk, a magnificent medium-sized raptor that I regularly see overhead the cemetery or nearby botanic gardens, ususally pursued by a squadron of assorted small birds. I can usually tell when it is in the area due to the cacophany of alarm calls from small birds. On this occasion it was perched amongst thick trees and I couldn't get close enough for a clean shot, but was able to see in the photos it has blood on its toes from a recent prey catch. Wonderful to see this and the other species in the cemetery, only 4Km from the centre of Brisbane CBD. This was a very successful outing, bagging lots of improved shots of my target species and with a few unexpected special species thrown in.
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