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The Channel-billed Cuckoo (Scythrops novaehollandiae) is a migratory species who after spending mid year in eastern Indonesia and New Guinea, migrate to northern and eastern Australia for our Australian summer. They have also been sighted in Alice Springs, Central Australia, where the adult birds have been documented having laid their eggs in the nest of some of our native birds such as the Torresian Crow.
The largest of the parasitic cuckoo birds in the world, between 55 cm to 70 cm long and with a wingspan of 86 cm to 106 cm, the adult has the red eye-ring and large pale beak. The body of the bird is pale gray, becoming paler and barred lower down the body. The wings are a darker grey and has dark tips on the feathers. The top of the tail is dark grey and is barred underneath with black bands and white tip at the end. The immature birds have olive to brown eye and a smaller bill.
More information in our Birds section on the Channel-billed Cuckoo and the juvenile Channel-billed Cuckoo. Check out our blogs CBC… fostering and A Home Like Alice…
- Scientific classification
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Chordata
- Class: Aves
- Order: Cuculiformes
- Family: Cuculidae
- Genus: Scythrops
- Species: Scythrops novaehollandiae
Alice Springs BirdsAlice Springs Birds — Index Babblers Black-faced Cuckooshrike Brown Falcon Channel-billed Cuckoo Crested Pigeon Galah Magpie-lark Musk Duck Port Lincoln Ringneck Rainbow Bee-eater Sacred Kingfisher Sanderling Singing Honeyeater Southern Boobook Spinifex Pigeon Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater Splendid Fairy-wren Spotted Dove Wedge-tailed Eagle Western Bowerbird Whistling Kite White-plumed Honeyeater Willie Wagtail Yellow-throated Miner
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Alice Springs FloraAlice Springs Flora Index Acacia ligulata Annual Yellowtop Bougainvillea Apple Bush Burdekin Plum Carob Tree (Ceratonia siliqa) Cattle Bush Desert Cotton (Aerva javanica) Desert Oak Eremophila Wildberry Feijoa sellowiana Flannel Cudweed Fork-leaf Corkwood Ghost Gum Golden Everlasting Kurrajong Lemon-flowered Gum MacDonnell’s Desert Fuchsia Native Bluebell Native Tomato Needlewood Olive Tree Perennial Yellow Top Rat’s Tail River Red Gum Inland River Red Gum Rosy Dock Round-leaved Mallee Scurvy Grass Silky Eremophila Stemodia viscosa Striped Mintbush Sturt’s Desert Pea Sturt’s Desert Rose Tangled Leschenaultia Tar Vine Weeping Bottlebrush White Cedar Yellow Billybutton Yellow-keeled Swainsona Yellow Oleander