‘Make It Stop’: Channel-Billed Cuckoos Return from Papua New Guinea Holiday to Terrorise the Shire Once Again

Sandy Shores | Editor-in-Chief | Sutherland Shire Gazette

3 November 2025

They’ve returned. Fresh from their annual winter escape to Papua New Guinea, the Channel-Billed Cuckoos have swooped back into the Shire - louder, cockier, and apparently determined to ensure no human sleeps ever again.

For the past fortnight, locals across the Shire from Heathcote to Woolloware have been jolted awake between 2 am and dawn by the birds’ signature cry - a sound described by residents as “a car alarm having an existential crisis” and by one dad as “what my soul sounds like after paying the mortgage.”

The birds, which biologists politely describe as brood parasites, prefer to lay their eggs in magpie nests and then outsource all parental duties - a level of delegation many working parents have reportedly found aspirational.

“They think they’re shy,” said one shell-shocked Loftus resident, clutching a half-drunk Nespresso. “But they’re screaming from the treetops like a toddler on red cordial.”

Experts say the raucous visitors are simply “announcing their arrival,” though residents argue the nightly chorus feels less like an announcement and more like a psychological operation. Facebook pages across the Shire are now littered with desperate posts titled ‘Was that a kookaburra or Satan?’ and ‘Anyone else plotting relocation?’

“I haven’t slept properly in two weeks,” said another local. “At this point, I’d rather share my yard with a leaf blower convention.”

As the cacophony continues, locals are learning an important truth about Shire life in spring: magpies may swoop - but cuckoos haunt.

And judging by the noise, they’re not leaving anytime soon.