Seasonal variation in koel calls

[Andrew Taylor <>]

On Sat, Nov 04, 2006 at 05:46:35PM +1100, Gordon and Pam Cain wrote:
> Our koels who've just arrived are doing their typical early season,
> two-syllable call -- to us it sounds like 'all-right. . . all-right. . .'.
> but by the end of the season they have all given up that call and begin
> their much more rapid, one-syllable call -- perhaps
> 'Wheet-wheet-wheet-wheet-wheet'.
> Forgetting my transcription problems, why?

Your Wheet-wheet-... call is probably the call transliterated as "keek"
in HANZAB and said to be uttered by females only.

And your "all-right" call is probably the call transliterated as "coo-ee"
in HANZAB and said to be uttered by males only.

As its plausible that either females arrive later or call less earlier
the season, its hard to say more.

Here in inner Sydney and in Brisbane according to an Emu paper by
Maller&Jones the "wurroo" call (said to be males only) is  more uttered
later in the a season.  Earlier in the season "coo-ee" calls dominate.

But I've just returned from a week in the Top End where interestingly
"wurroo" calls seemed much more common than "coo-ee" calls, e.g. at
Mataranka I heard 3+ individuals making "wurroo" calls at sunset.

Andrew
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com

To unsubscribe from this mailing list, 
send the message:
unsubscribe 
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 
===============================