Black-eared Cuckoo Chrysococcyx osculans

Length 19 cm; wingspan 34 cm; weight 30 g.

The Black-eared Cuckoo is usually seen singly, but occasionally in twos or small parties of up to six.  Its general behaviour is much like that of other cuckoos, with males calling loudly from elevated or exposed perches during the breeding season, or engaged in noisy display chases, but quiet and unobtrusive at other times, perched quietly on a low branch or twig in a stunted tree (often a dead one) or a shrub.  They forage mainly in areas of open ground, but also among the foliage of trees and shrubs, especially those infested with insects or their larvae.  Gait and flight of the Black-eared Cuckoo is typical of other cuckoos.  Their calls are distinctive.

HABITAT
The species inhabits a wide variety of open woodlands and shrublands, often those dominated by eucalypts, and often with a shrubby understorey of broombush, Eremophila, Cassia, bluebush or saltbush.  It particularly favours stunted mallee communities, open River Red Gum woodlands or Coolibah along rivers or around other wetlands in otherwise open grasslands, or open acacia woodlands dominated by Mulga, Myall or Boree.  Black-eared Cuckoos sometimes also occur in woodlands dominated by Leopardwood Flindersia, paperbarks, cypress-pines or casuarinas, and they also often inhabit saltbush or bluebush shrubland on sandhills or sandy flats, heathland, spinifex grassland or samphire shrubland.

DISTRIBUTION
Black-eared Cuckoos occur mainly on the Australian mainland, with vagrants recorded in Tasmania; the species very occasionally occurs further north, in southern New Guinea, on Aru Island and in the Moluccas.

STATUS

• Near Threatened in Victoria

THREATS
There is little information available.  The species is said to have been adversely affected by the activities of egg-collectors in the past.  Cuckoos occasionally strike wires or windows.

MOVEMENTS
Poorly understood.  The species is apparently migratory in most of south-eastern Australia, arriving in winter and spring to breed, and leaving in summer or early to mid-autumn.

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