Always plenty of koels around here. Interesting interplay of two koels here in Nicholls yesterday evening. Female Koel was calling from the lower branches of a eucalyptus tree outside my back fence, with it’s typical three or four loud shrieks ( which carry quite a distance). The much more musical, more melodious male Koel answered antiphonally from about 200 metres away across the creek on Percival Hill. It was nearly dusk but not quite and standing beneath the tree I watched the pretty female calling at close range for 5 minutes.
The duet went on for about half an hour and my wife and I enjoyed the little performance with a glass of wine on the back verandah. They stopped on dark.
Don’t often get to hear this interaction, especially as prolonged as it was this time.
PS I was bemused by all the sudden excitement about koels on the chatline a few weeks ago. I have seen and heard Koels here every year for the past 13 years I have lived here and I thought them interesting but not remarkable. But when I looked them up in the COG Annual Bird Report, I then realised that they were considered uncommon and that people were therefore keen to hear and report them.
