Shining Cuckoo in my garden with a young bird

[Birdbrain]

When I read about Shining cuckoos it says they have no part in bringing up their young because they lay their eggs in a grey warbler nest.
In my garden in the last few days is a shining cuckoo with a young bird. They are always together and I notice because of the sound the baby bird makes. The baby bird isn't recognisable to me but it does have a long tail and looks to be brown with a hint of red. I have recorded it's peep noises. Does anyone have advice/knowledge?

[Neil Fitzgerald]

Could you describe what makes it seem like a baby to you? A long tail suggests it's not a recent fledgling, but it would be a distinctive feature of an adult grey warbler.

[Birdbrain]

The young bird is not fully grown, it may be more than a fledging because it can fly. It's sound is one of a young bird constantly calling to a mother. I noticed it first because I didn't recognise the bird call and I know the calls of birds in my area well. The tail is long compared to the body but the bird itself is very small. It is definitely not a grey warbler and doesn't make the sound of one. This young bird is always with the adult shining cuckoo. It flits around a lot in the way it flies. It is very intriguing!

[Birdbrain]

Oh, I just did a search on images for young shining cuckoos and saw an image of a shining cuckoo being fed by a grey warbler on the Zealandia website. Perhaps it is the shining cuckoo that is the young bird and making the noises and it is a grey warbler doing the mothering as the bird looks similar to the Zealandia image. Wow!

[Neil Fitzgerald]

Young shining cuckoos do make a constant begging call that can be hard to pinpoint. It is neat to see a cuckoo being fed by the foster parents.

[Birdbrain]

Seeing such a small bird that had some fluffy looking 'young bird' feathers made me assume the shining cuckoo was the mother - it was so much larger than the tiny warbler doing the mothering. I guess if the warbler had human tendencies it would think itself looking like the cuckoo! Nature is amazing.