Can anyone help with the following ?
A very large bird, not much under an eagle for the brief instant I saw it. Flying fast, heading west, late sunset. Hit the mountain and rose up, using the same location, (and therefore the same thermal ?) as the eagles use.
Unlike eagles this one was winging (not gliding) its way west until it reached the thermal, raucous, very noisy like a cockatoo, but alone and no need for the noise ? On reaching the top of the mountain ridge, started flapping off west again.
Seemed to be on a mission and in a hurry, still screeching continously ?
Brown. Brownish, mabe some shades of brown streaks.
cool bananas ... Greg
I can think of the Black and Whistling Kites that I see but they make more of a high pitched whistling call.
Curtis
Channel bill cuckoo. Maybe
See it! Hear it!
Mid-North Coast NSW
Channel bill cuckoo. Maybe
See it! Hear it!
Mid-North Coast NSW
Channel bill cuckoo.
See it! Hear it!
Mid-North Coast NSW
Yes, Channel billed Cuckoos that's probably it
Curtis
The call of the Channel billed Cuckoo is on this page:
http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/species/Scythrops-novaehollandiae
Curtis
Yes ... That is the call. And mine was brownish so maybe only a baby. They must get very big.
A very strange bird and new to me. I am going to have to keep my camera in a holster and learn to be a kwik-draw.
It makes so much sense now. Not far from me down a track is a massive fig. A few weeks ago it fruited, and I really mean fruited. There must have been more than a few tonne of fruit. Five days later on my return with the camera nearly every fig gone. I was hoping to get shots of the green catbird and regents bower .. Which my book tells me can be seen feeding together on figs.
Now I think I know where a fair portion of that fruit went.
Thank you both for that identification. I have only been on the forum a short time, but now when my friends and guests ask, 'wot bird iz dat ?' ... I will be able to assume the mantle of expert .. So funny. 'Wot ? You don't know ? A channel billed cuckoo, I tort everyone knew that ! He has been feeding on the fig down the track'
I can't wait
Cool bananas ... Greg
I have been reading up on this bird, and it says that he is often called the 'storm bird'.
Now in Brisbane and surrounds there is a bird, I have never seen, called the storm bird. This bird makes a peculiar melancholy call just before it rains, and his weather predictions are right often enough for him to have deserved this title. Sometimes called the Rain Bird. Nothing like the 'awk awk' of the Channel Billed Cuckoo. I have been told that the 'brizzy' storm bird is a small insignificant brown bird.
Surely it is not the same bird ?
Does anyone know the name of the 'brizzy' storm bird ?
cool bananas ... Greg
I know the Koel is also often known as the storm bird, but it's of a similar size to a Channel-billed Cuckoo.
According to wikipedia/google the Black-faced Cuckoo-Shrike is also known as a rain bird by some.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbird)
Cheers
Tim
Brisbane
Thanks Timmo ... I read the wiki and looked up the cuckoo shrike on this site .. but that wasn't the call.
I sorta randomly started going thru the birdcalls and found it more or less by accident. It is called the Eastern Koel. Turns out to be quite a large bird.
Thanks for help ... Greg
Good work Curtis with the sound recording ,I think it make it easier for Greg to ID
See it! Hear it!
Mid-North Coast NSW