Female Speckled Warbler (Chthonicola sagittata) feeding a Black-eared Cuckoo
© David Cook
Cocoparra National Park, NSW, Australia. On the way back from visiting Willandra National Park with the Canberra Ornithologists Group (COG) over Easter, we stayed at Cocoparra NP for a few days. They're both really nice National Parks - great birds at both, but my photographic highlight was this moment. This female Speckled Warbler (Chthonicola sagittata) has her work cut out for her in keeping this monstrous juvenile Black-eared Cuckoo (Chrysococcyx osculans) fed. I was alerted to the cuckoo's begging call and followed it around waiting for a Speckled Warbler foster parent to feed it. The feeding was all over in a blur - I had the camera set to 7 frames per second, and the warbler was only in 3 of the frames - fly in, chuck the food down the gaping hole, fly out again, all in under half a second! I'd never seen this before, so it was a nice experience, and lucky enough to capture the moment.
Captured on 29 Apr 2011
Photograph location coordinates are -34.095882:146.2088.