Koels breeding in GBS sites

[martin butterfield <>]

My philosophy is that breeding is primarily about survival of the the species.  From that view the DY of a Koel being fed by a Red Wattlebird is certainly about the Koel and not the Wattlebird. 

Terry's situation, if his very reasonable assumption is carried through, will be the first in-nest record of a cuckoo.  There have been some records of 'preliminaries' (Display and Copulation) but none of "Nest with eggs" or "nest with young". 

In terms of logic there must be a time at which the nest contains eggs and young of both species, but without great luck  (or a cherry-picker) it will only be possible to infer, rather than observe that.  Having had the application to identify what is going on there may be a chance that Terry will observe the Koel chick in the nest.  In that case I believe it should be recorded against the species of the chick not the parents.  

However the parents could quite reasonably be recorded as Carrying food for the young cuckoo - indeed if the nest was outside Terry's GBS site he may well have recorded the parents carrying food within his site.  A similar situation arose on the Kama Wednesday Walk where we saw a Superb Fairy-wren feeding a Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo (out of nest).  

At the risk of causing confusion I wonder whether there might not be a need for an additional breeding code.  I'd suggest CU for feeding CUckoo attached to the Parent bird (whether the feeding is in or out of nest).  This could be easily linked to the DY or NY records for the cuckoos in the same site and week.

Analysts could then do as they wish to infer when the Koel eggs were laid etc.

Martin

On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 5:09 PM, Philip Veerman <> wrote:

And indeed a dy for the host species too? Although maybe we should clarify that. I point out the situation is new. At the time I wrote The GBS Report, there had never been an in nest observation of any species of cuckoo for the history of the GBS. Only dy observations. So I did not discuss the problem in The GBS Report. As Koels (unlike other cuckoos) are common in suburban Canberra and rare outside the city environs, the breeding is occurring in nests in GBS areas. In Terry's note below (and similar for others) what we likely have is a ne, a ny and if successful a dy set of records for both the cuckoo and the host. Is it sensible to call it a dy for the wattlebird? I could argue both yes (from the point of view of the wattlebird) the wattlebird has dy, or no, from the point of view of the cuckoo, there are no dy wattlebird chicks from that nest.

 

Of course at the time I wrote The GBS Report, I wrote for the Koel "No breeding records - yet"  Which indicates my now correct prediction that such records would start soon. BOCG V2 tells us even less.

 

Pity that there won't ever be an update of The GBS Report to explain the history and results of the project to clarify these things.

 

Philip

 

-----Original Message-----
From: martin butterfield [
Sent: Tuesday, 31 January 2012 4:22 PM
To: Terry Munro
Cc:
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Koels in Watson

Terry

Can you (and anyone else who has Koels or other cuckoo breeding records in a GBS site) record the event carefully with notes on the Chart.  If a juvenile Koel emerges it should be recorded as DY for that species. 

Martin

On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 4:06 PM, Terry Munro <> wrote:

I've been watching a Wattlebirds nest that I believe has been parasitised by a Koel. A young dead Wattlebird chick is hanging outside the nest & the chick being fed by the adult Wattlebirds isn't making the normal bzzzt bzzt calls of a young wattlebird. I can't see inside the nest because it is too high. Over the past month there was a lot of Koel activity in the area. I am keeping a close eye on what happens.

Terry Munro