Koel behaviour

["Philip Veerman" <>]

For what it is worth, at my home so far this year (actually no, as I am excluding January & February), I have only been hearing the "koel" call, maybe not each day, but most, over the past 5 weeks, not especially close. No suggestion of more than one bird within earshot. I have only once seen the one bird, a male, in the local park that I include in my GBS area. In the same tree that I saw my first ever GBS Koel several years ago. The "koel" call is not uniform as it is given about 8 times, each utterance increasing in intensity, though I was thinking whilst watching and listening at how would that be analysed. A Red Wattlebird approached it to have a close look for a minute or two. Over the previous summer I had 5 adults at one time within about 50 metres.

 

Philip

 

-----Original Message-----
From: sandra henderson [
Sent: Thursday, 27 November 2014 4:41 AM
To: Jack & Andrea Holland
Cc: Cog line
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Koel behaviour

in Wanniassa the 2 local birds seem to give their koel call most of the time - some days I don't hear the wirra... call at all. And last night, staying in Tumut ready for some early morning bird surveys, a single koel calling for a long time in Tumut, but no wirra call at all, just the koel call

sandra h

On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 9:27 PM, Jack & Andrea Holland <> wrote:

Very interesting Geoffrey, your observations concur with mine as I have observed/heard the male switch from the “koel” to the “wirra wirra”and back mid call.  Chat line subscribers have noted they have observed the female calling, but I see few of them and am not familiar with the call they make, though the one you describe is similar to that of adults I heard when they interacted with the fledglings were had in out GBS etc at the end of last summer (see my article in the most recent issue of CBN). 

 

Koels arrived in our area in the last week of October and for the first fortnight or so I only heard the Koel call, with the first wirra wirra call not until nearly the middle of the month.  Calls became noticeably less frequent (and further away, >1 km as opposed to as close as within 500 m).  If this means they have started, or are about to commence breeding, it is consistent with my observations last summer which was a poor one for calling but a good one for fledglings, with for the first time not 1 but 3 observed within 500 m of my GBS (two within, again see my CBN article).

 

Jack Holland   

 

From:

Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2014 12:41 PM

To:

Subject: [canberrabirds] Koel behaviour

 

Local koel behaviour follows last year’s pattern, but more so.  5/6 years ago there was much prolonged and persistent koeling throughout the season from high stations, generally the same ones.  Last season there was some early koeling but later there was little of that to be heard but instead intermittent wirra-wirraing throughout the day.  The wirra-wirra is now the standard call, with some kek-keking, presumably from the female.  My theory is that in general the koeling male seeks females that are not in the immediate vicinity at the time.  The wirra-wirra is an excitement call when a female or females are present.  This morning on Rocky Knob the wirras were loud and frequent with an occasional kek.  There were 3 birds initially highish in the eucs.  (Another male could be heard further away in the direction of Captain Cook.)  The female was seen to fly off in that direction, leaving 2 males that engaged in a tense stand-off for more than an hour, sometimes within a metre of one another, and mainly in shrubbery within a metre or so of the ground.  One bird, the more aggressive, was smaller, the other being quite sluggish and reluctant to move away.  It is possible that the larger (older?) bird had moved into territory claimed by the smaller bird.   During the confrontation there was not a single ‘koel’ but there was the occasional wirra, with some clucking and churring.  In the below the aggressive (smaller) male is on the right and upper middle and on the left in the interaction shot.  The photos were taken with a compact camera from a range of 3-8 metres.