Not quite so early, but on her
way to work on Thursday Prue saw a male and female Koel in Wakefield Gardens
(behind Ainslie shops), apparently calling at each other. The male was harassed
and chased off by a Pied Currawong. A precursor to another bountiful summer for
Ainslie Koels perhaps?
cheers
Steve
From: Geoffrey Dabb
[
Sent: Saturday, 14 November 2009 10:54 AM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Early morning
About 5 years ago I found it almost
impossible to get a clock radio with an earphone to replace one obtained long
before when such items were commonplace. The only unit I could get was a
DIGITAL model, a German product, in advance of its time in Australia. The
digital function was superfluous because then, as indeed still in Canberra, I
believe, no stations transmit the required digital signal. This piece of
equipment worked well enough, even if I had to get out the manual every time I
needed to set the time after one of Canberra’s frequent power
interruptions. However, it had one serious defect. Groping for the
station button to catch the news in the middle of the night I would often press
some hidden control that triggered a time-delayed alarm. In due course
this would start with a soft ‘beep’ the beeps gradually increasing
in volume and insistence until loud enough to wake anyone. If temporarily
silenced, this sound would begin again after an interval of about 30 minutes,
until I tore the power cord from the wall.
Naturally, I came to exercise extreme care
in operating this device. However, this morning I was a bit careless, and
the ‘beep’ problem re-occurred. It was 5am (the offered
bulletin, I might add, not being worth the trouble). However, the
interesting thing was that the moment I had silenced the radio I heard the
local koel giving voice at almost exactly, to my ear, the same tone and
tempo. I can therefore add to the record that koels call at 5am. It
might well have been calling earlier. If it had not been doing so, there
are two possibilities. One is that the very first lightening of the
eastern sky had been the cue for Mr K to begin clearing his throat. The
other is that my alarm had roused the bird to respond to a perceived rival, the
kind of challenge that in my experience members of the cuckoo tribe are quick
to take up.
