Backyard Zoology · 13 March 2018
2018-03-13T18:40:13+11:00
https://www.facebook.com/backyardzoology/posts/pfbid02pzycBewzieVktFKQXgGShvEDUzajzxcmJbLLtuYCY4X9nR3qy5pfENVoWrd7jNMhl

After posting the Domino Cuckoo Bee the other day it became clear that you lot love the total bastards of the animal world so thought I'd feature another that starts off life with a bit of a dick move: the Brush Cuckoo. 

Now I didn't even know the Brush Cuckoo existed until I sighted one about a week ago. We get the Fan-Tailed Cuckoos around here and they're lovely with this kind of mournful call that I always think is going to foretell my death when I'm in a particularly dark and creepy part of the bush 😳😂 

This guy though was just sitting on the telephone line the other morning and when I first walked past the door I thought it might have been a Little Wattlebird - just because of the level of patterning. Now not gonna lie, there was a time, not that long ago, when I was obsessed with getting a new bird and being able to tick my bird book (I know, I lead a very exciting life 😂). I would plan each day to maximise the number of new birds I might be able to find and photograph. The obsession has kind of died down now but when I realised that I wasn't looking at a wattlebird, I felt that feeling again and ran around like a crazy woman trying to find my camera and my bird guide.

This Brush Cuckoo is a juvenile and I spent ages with it hoping to see the parent come up and feed it so I could see exactly WHO the parent was because the Brush Cuckoo, not unlike the Cuckoo Bees, lays its egg in the nest of other species and lets them do the hard yards of raising their baby. Now I don't like to refer to any baby as a total arse hat 😂 but once hatched the young cuckoo then kicks any remaining eggs or HATCHLINGS out of the nest 😳 Now remember, this isn't kicking out other baby cuckoos; this is kicking out the eggs of the host bird. Yikes. They mainly parasitise the nests of smaller birds such as fairy-wrens, fantails and honeyeaters. Poor buggers, as if raising kids isn't hard enough but then having to keep up with the feeding needs of a MUCH larger species.

Still, totally lovely bird and a tick for my bird book after all 😉

Juvenile Brush Cuckoo
Northern Illawarra

#northernillawarra #birdsofoz #coalcoast #ornithology #australianbirds #cuckoos #totalbastards #backyardzoology