If you are wondering what those chilling screams during the day or in the middle of the night are, or maybe you’re hearing the ruckus of other birds going crazy, swooping and seemingly attacking a tree, then more than likely this prehistoric looking bird is the culprit.
The Channelbilled Cuckoo is the largest parasitic cuckoo in the world and is back on it's annual migration to northern and eastern Australia from New Guinea and Indonesia.
Channelbilled cuckoo’s lay their eggs in the nests of the Australian Magpie, the Pied Currawong and members of the crow family.
Unlike many other cuckoos, the young birds do not evict the host's young or eggs from the nest, but simply grow faster and demand all the food, thus starving the others. Often the adult female will damage the existing eggs in the nest when she lays her own and she may even lay more than one egg in a single nest.