I thought the winter would never end with snow seeming to linger forever on kunanyi/Mt Wellington into the second half of October but the sighting of summerbirds told me that summer had finally arrived.
Forget spring and autumn, in 2021 I decided to divide the year into just two seasons, winter and summer. A brutal weather that had brought icy winds and snow would not be broken until October 22 when, strangely, the temperature rose to an unseasonal 23 degrees.
It seems the summerbirds had got the message that summer had blossomed.
For the whole of September and most of October the arrivals at the Waterworks Reserve – where I do most of my bird-watching – has been sporadic and irregular and so I had focused on the domestic migration, watching eastern spinebills and crescent honeyeaters travelling between the coast to breeding areas on the mountain.
The summerbirds – more formally known as black-faced cuckoo shrikes – make a longer journey, flying from Queensland through New South Wales and then Victoria to finally cross Bass Strait on their way to nesting areas in the dry eucalypt woodlands of the state.
They are large, graceful birds – about the size of a green rosella – and are clothed in a light-grey plumage. As their name suggests, they carry a charcoal-black mask on their faces.
I was alerted to a small flock of them by their distinct call, a soft churring. Identification of the summerbirds is also aided by a curious habit they have of shuffling their wings when landing on a branch, a habit which gives them another name in country districts, that of “shufflewing”.
The summerbirds are considered a friend of the nation’s farmers because they largely feed on insect pests, often snatching winged species in the air. In these aerial manoeuvres another unusual feature of their behaviour comes into play, a dipping and loping undulating flight.
Black-faced cuckoo shrikes were misnamed along with many other Australian species when the continent was first explored by European naturalists. They are neither cuckoos or shrikes, but the summerbird’s plumage mirrors aspects of the European species.
I’ve never seen summerbirds nesting in the Waterworks but their arrival, and their territorial songs, indicate they might this year. The small nest is a shallow saucer of sticks and bark, bound together with cobwebs. Both partners construct it and care for the young birds.
The summerbirds were another of the summer migrants to tick off on my checklist a little later than usual. They followed late-arriving cuckoos and the more popular harbinger of spring, the welcome swallow.
I was soon searching the skies for the next scheduled arrivals, tree martins and dusky woodswallows. The steady flow of birds from the mainland reaches its peak in late October before the last visitor, the satin flycatcher, turns up. This can be as late as early November.