On the second night of travelling, I ended up at the lookout on the top of the Moonbi Hills a few kilometres north of Tamworth on the New England Highway. I just put up my tent in a grassy corner of the carpark.
Apart from the occasional low level background noise of a semi either crawling up the hill or using engine brakes to descend, it was quiet and the view to the west was pretty speccy. I awoke early [5?] and was making a cuppa when the unmistakable screaming cackling [
click here] of the Channel-billed Cuckoo snapped my head upwards. Three of them circled around the lookout for several minutes then landed in very viewable trees. Their calls accompanied the Pacific Koels in the trees by my camp [just to remind me of the one I had left behind in Sale].
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| Channel-billed Cuckoo Scythrops novaehollandiae |
Other birds in the car park were Rainbow Lorikeets [lots], Musk Lorikeets [less], Superb Fairy-wrens and Noisy Friarbird. No picture of a Koel.
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| Musk Lorikeet Glossopsitta pusilla |
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| Noisy Friarbird Philemon corniculatus |
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| Superb Fairy-wren Malurus cyaneus |
Same fairy-wren but in different light. Shadow versus a setting sun. More later.
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