After only a few very brief calls over the past fortnight, the Chapman Koel
was in full voice for at least 10 minutes shortly after 6 am this morning.
I had been alerted to it by calling around 7:30 pm last night, very unusual for
this season has the vast majority of calling has been in the first few hours
after daybreak, and then only in short bursts.
Are the Koels still conspicuously calling your local area, and does anyone
have any suggestions/theories about why the peak calling seems to have been, as
it was last year, after the New Year when most of the eggs would have been laid
for the fledglings/chicks which have been reported over the past
month? This is unexpected if calling is, as for other cuckoos, aimed
at trying to attract a mate, as the likelihood of a fledgling surviving from an
egg laid in February would seem to me to be pretty low.
Jack Holland
