There seems to be an abundance of shining cuckoos or pipiwharauroa this year and they like our house – even the inside! We have had three of them checking out our interior decor this summer.

The first one came in quite late at night and was looking a little dazed so Dougal fed it some water and bedded it down in a cosy ice-cream container for the night and put it beside his bed for extra protection. We thought it might have been a juvenile bird that was having trouble with mastering flight, but we were proved to be very wrong when we discovered in the morning that it had laid an egg! This bird was successfully released in some trees later the following day well away from the house. See in our gallery for the picture – she posed beautifully before flying away.

Another 2 birds have also just flown into the house through open doors or windows and luckily have been unharmed. It must be a characteristic of shining cuckoos that they don’t handle houses too well.

We were also privileged to witness a pair of grey warblers feeding their adopted shining cuckoo chick recently. They were having to work very hard as the chick was more than twice as big as they were and very hungry. Look for a photo of this on our gallery as well.