Koel pair and comment on moult

["Philip Veerman" <>]

Nearly a year ago, I wrote the below. Today and a few days ago I had a close look at the male Koel in my yard. It too has an odd distribution of old wing and tail feathers in the centre of the wing and about 3 or 4 in from the edge of the tail and looks almost the same as the bird number 6 on age 769 of HANZAB except for rather more black on the underside. This is described in the HANZAB text. I had not noticed that feature in the adult male around my house over previous weeks. Surely this is a different bird. It seems to me they must maintain a selected few juvenile feathers long after the rest have moulted or do they grow new juvenile feathers.

 

Philip

-----Original Message-----
From: Philip
Sent: Friday, 10 February 2012 4:14 PM
To:
Subject: Koel pair and comment on moult on a female

For a couple weeks I have been often hearing Koels here and based mainly on location and timing believed there were two but had only seen the male. We have just had a big rain shower and I went out as I could hear them shrieking very near. Saw the male fly into one very densely foliaged tree where I couldn't see him and without me moving I saw a female fly in and perch on a power line nearby. She then flew to a tree and sat out in the open were I had a very good view as she sat with wings and tail all rather spread (maybe a rain bathing pose, although the rain had stopped). Her cap and mark from the beak were black. She was clearly in moult and I noted that on both wings and tail one feather on each side are mid brown with lighter bars but most are almost black with lighter bars. The brown feathers appeared worn (and on the tail were broken). The difference in colour was very obvious. The location of these brown feathers appeared fairly equal on both sides and fairly equally distant from the (carpal) joint between the secondaries and primaries. This being consistent with that I presume the moult starts at that joint and progresses inwardly and outwardly at a similar rate. In the tail the brown feathers were equal on left and right, mid between central and outer feathers. She would have been really easy to get a photo of if I had a camera. A Noisy Miner sat adjacent in some sort of agitated posture but being alone, nothing came of that.

 

Philip Veerman

24 Castley Circuit

Kambah  ACT  2902

 

02 - 62314041