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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Hi Michael,
We are experiencing a similar thing in our garden at Ryde (10 km NW of the Sydney CBD), but with only one fledgling. Our CBC fledged early on New Year’s Eve too and seem to be as equally demanding as your CBCs. However, I can only imagine the noise of two fledglings with voracious appetites – it is loud and enduring enough with just one! Our CBC is so demanding and large, the currawongs feeding it are sometimes knocked off their perch because the CBC clambers over them in an attempt to find more food. At peak feeding times, the currawongs are delivering food to the fledgling every 4 to 5 minutes. I’ve never felt sorry for currawongs until now. We’ve heard adult CBCs in the dawn chorus in and around our garden over the last few days, but I’ve only observed an adult feeding the fledgling once, which was within one hour of fledging time (I actually saw the cuckoo leave the nest around 10 a.m. on New Year’s Eve). So the biological parents appear to be present in the immediate area, but don’t seem to be assisting with the feeding in a significant way.
I also regard this period as an unforgettable festive season!
Kind regards, Stephen
Stephen Ambrose Ryde, NSW
Hi Michael,
We are experiencing a similar thing in our garden at Ryde (10 km NW of the Sydney CBD), but with only one fledgling. Our CBC fledged early on New Year’s Eve too and seem to be as equally demanding as your CBCs. However, I can only imagine the noise of two fledglings with voracious appetites – it is loud and enduring enough with just one! Our CBC is so demanding and large, the currawongs feeding it are sometimes knocked off their perch because the CBC clambers over them in an attempt to find more food. At peak feeding times, the currawongs are delivering food to the fledgling every 4 to 5 minutes. I’ve never felt sorry for currawongs until now. We’ve heard adult CBCs in the dawn chorus in and around our garden over the last few days, but I’ve only observed an adult feeding the fledgling once, which was within one hour of fledging time (I actually saw the cuckoo leave the nest around 10 a.m. on New Year’s Eve). So the biological parents appear to be present in the immediate area, but don’t seem to be assisting with the feeding in a significant way.
I also regard this period as an unforgettable festive season!
Kind regards, Stephen
Stephen Ambrose Ryde, NSW