Shining Bronze Cuckoo

Chrysococcyx lucidus, the Shining Bronze Cuckoo, prefers to parasitize the dome-shaped nests of thornbills, fairy-wrens, gerygones and scrubwrens.

The Shining Bronze Cuckoo and the Horsefield’s Bronze Cuckoo are the two bronze cuckoos we see most around here. The SB Cuckoo has a diagnostic ‘whistling the dog’ call LINK – each note rising in pitch. The HB Cuckoo’s call is a persistent, descending whistle LINK. The SB Cuckoo lacks a distinctive dark stripe through the eye that is very obvious in the HB Cuckoo.

Left: SB Cuckoo                   Right: HB Cuckoo (credit: eBird)

Shining Bronze Cuckoos use the perch and pounce technique to feed on caterpillars, beetles, craneflies and ants. They tend to prefer the wetter forest types but often disperse into drier coastal scrub and woodlands – wherever their favourite host species like to nest.

Most individual SB Cuckoos are migratory, arriving here in spring to breed and heading to the northern parts of Australia in autumn. It is not unusual though for some remain south over winter.

The little ‘dog whistler’ is a great sign that spring has arrived.