Our Channel-Billed Cuckoo Story

For some reason I don't know why (Sorry if I am being a bit misleading) Channel-Billed Cuckoos seem to be very popular around here, so I thought i'd share the story of ours in our neighborhood.

We have had Channel-Billed Cuckoos for a long time, ever since early 2012 in January. We heard all of those weird sounds at night time coming from the reserve at the back of the house, going "RAAWK RAAAWK AWK AWK AWK!!!" They were happening frequently, especially at night time. 
Being a bird lover I had no idea if this was actually a bird or not at first!!!
As time went on we went around asking our friends if they knew what that bird or animal was making those funny sounds during the day and night.

Only one of my neighbors knew what it was, a Channel-Billed Cuckoo. At first, he mistook it for a Ptyerodactyl! When I looked at it in my Bird Book, I was amazed ... the resemblance was uncanny! :p
As time went on they kept on living in our area and started to really enjoy our place especially and we were getting used to them being around us.
After a while they started to become more visible, one reason was because they used  to be chased a lot by the Noisy Miner Birds we used to have problems with even in our own garden, who they'd used to chase away all of the other birds and would harras other animals like our cats.
 

During the time when they (the Channel-Bills) kept on being chased and 'mobbed', we got to see them more out in the open. 
There were usually two to four big ones, they'd fly really heavily with their tails fanned out. Sometimes from them they'd rattle their beak in defence (My mum liked to say that they were snoring!)

I have a very short video of two of the adult Channel Billed Cuckoos in our back garden on our old dead pepper tree (We cut it down recently). You can't see them at first (The branches were covering their location and they were the same colour as the tree itself, basically) but you can see them at the end when the Noisy Miners chase them away. The Channel-Bills are very amazing birds, and they're the biggest i've ever seen!

Sometimes I would see a couple of young Channel Bills in the reserve, being mobbed by Noisy Miners from time to time. I find it funny how the Noisy's mob the Channel-Bills because they are not usually going after their nests, but they're actually doing the Currawongs quite a favour without even realizing it!!!

I have seen some families (?) of four. Two young ones have been spotted in our neighborhood by myself several times, and more mature ones would be around. 

It looks like that the Channel-Bills take up residence in our area quite often, and I haven't heard them in a while because the Rain just started to hit Sydney from Queensland. Maybe that's why. 

I want to keep an eye out on their feeding habits next time I hear them.

Here's the video 

http://www.veoh.com/watch/v43542561C3MKfgsG