Around the Clock

My ‘Bird Nerd’ column in the latest Australian Geographic Magazine (Issue 153) is all about those migrating cuckoos that call throughout the summer nights and keep the light sleepers amnogst us awake.

Cuckoos are typically secretive birds, hiding within dense foliage or emitting soft trilling calls from an obscure perch. Most are heard well before they are seen, if seen at all.

Australia has 12 species of resident and migratory cuckoos, from the diminutive Little Bronze-cuckoo, which at just 15cm long is the smallest of the world’s cuckoos, to the hulking 66cm long Channel-billed Cuckoo, the world’s largest. A further five species have been recorded here as vagrants.

One regular migrant that is almost always heard well before it is seen is the Eastern Koel, which travels from south-east Asia to Australia’s north and east in spring and returns northwards in early autumn. Some birds do remain in northern Australia year round.

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