Hopefully it will be warm enough and we should catch some good reptiles, but the birding may be harder as most of the migrants have left and the local birds are quiet, as it's not breeding time. In these northern areas you really need to be there during the wet season or just after a big cyclone to see the birds at their best.
Here are some pictures from my birding trip with my cousin to Broome during the wet season, when breeding was in full swing and lots of cuckoos were there.
In Broome you can get up to 8 cuckoo species at the right time of year. During February, most cuckoos were calling and watching their host's nest building activities, such as this Little Bronze-Cuckoo.
A young Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo that has left it's host parents nest. Over a 100 species of bird in Australia have their nests parasitised by cuckoos.
Pheasant Coucals were in breeding black and brown plumage and calling from all grassy areas. No longer considered a cuckoo due to their DNA and habit of building their own nests, instead of using host species.
One of the local host species that the cuckoos were watching, a lovely female Red-backed Fairy-wren.
A beautiful male Red-backed Fairy-wren, heading back to his nest.
3 comments:
Great shots, especially the last one.
We 'only' get 4 species of Cuckoo here in Japan and 3 of them look almost identical but their calls are very different plus they choose different hosts......
I don't like birds that look identical, especially when they don't call!
those photos of the birds from broome are excellent, you must be very lucky to have such a talented cousin. :)
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