I haven’t had a lot of experience with these, but I think the ‘reminder’ call, a persistent monotonous ‘kleep’ (every few seconds) that I’ve heard at several sites should be distinguished from the ‘begging’ call when a host approaches with food. This is a more animated ‘keark-keark-keark’. Both kinds of call have something in common with those of the young of other species in comparable situations. From: Virginia Abernathy [
Sent: Thursday, 29 January 2015 9:54 AM
To: Jack & Andrea Holland;
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] young Koel Jack, The similarity of calls between koel and wattlebird chicks is actually something I'm measuring. Haven't analysed anything yet, but I'm happy to tell you the results once I do. Just from my observations, it seems like koel fledglings are sometimes able to change their calls a bit from more wattlebird-y to more friarbird-y. I've heard several that I think sound very similar to a Noisy Friarbird fledgling. Cheers, Virginia
The one I reported from Rivett last week was still there at 7:30 this morning, it has become increasingly bold and easy to find over the past 9 days, though always still within 50 m of where I first found it. Red Wattlebirds were still close to it, though I didn’t actually see feeding take place. Interestingly one of these was a fledgling, though calling quite softly compared with the loud and quite advanced one in my GBS site which has fooled me many times over the past week into thinking it may be a young Koel. I couldn’t help wondering if the similarity of the calls is another factor causing the host bird to feed it? Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2015 12:45 PM Subject: [canberrabirds] young Koel and Black Kite This morning a young Koel in the median strip of Northbourne Avenue in Lyneham (at the level of the Motor Registry, it could fly well, but still constantly begging and frequently fed by Red Wattlebirds. Later in the morning 1 Black Kite circling over the Yowani Golf club. |
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