20201002-MMPI0064
A short walk to the end of my street this morning to my local bird spot, Toowong Cemetery.Situated only 4Km from the Brisbane CBD, the cemetery sprawls over acres of undulating land with some impressive views of the city skyline. This time of year sees the return of Channel-billed Cuckoos on their annual breeding migration, with them travelling down from as far as Papua New Guinea. L:ike most Cuckoo species they are parasitic nesters, meaning they lay their eggs in the nests of surrogate species, in this case the chosen surrogates are Crows, Magpies and Currawongs. Each Cuckoo species chooses surrogate species that are smaller, but not too small to be able to raise their hungry surrogate nestling. The male Cuckoo puts on a distraction show to coax the surrogates out of the nest, while it is unattended the female Cuckoo jumps in and quickly deposits her egg. The female Cuckoo or cuckoo nestling force existing eggs or nestlings out of the nest, leaving the surrogate species to raise a noisy, ugly Cuckoo chick that quicky outgrows them, but they show it all the love they would their own babies, firmly believing it is theirs. Apart from a couple of Channel-billed Cuckoos today I got some nice shots of the very beautiful male Olive-backed Oriole, a Laughing Kookaburra posed in nice light on a headstone, a Pale-headed Rosella in a Jacaranda tree and a Suplur-crested Cockatoo atop a conifer tree with its crest raised after landing. A beautiful morning on a day off work, chatted with several nice fellow birders and just generally enjoyed my day not working.
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