canberrabirds

Five Koels in Backyard

To: "" <>
Subject: Five Koels in Backyard
From: Lindsay & Diana <>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 23:35:00 +0000
mmmm. perhaps a koelescence.

Lindsay

On 18-Nov-15 11:10 PM, Philip Veerman wrote:

I had a similar collection of 5 koels at my place I think last year that I wrote about to Canberra Birds. A lot of activity and calling and chasing but I don’t think I perceived any posturing.

 

From: Virginia Abernathy [m("anu.edu.au","virginia.abernathy");">]
Sent: Wednesday, 18 November 2015 10:18 PM
To: Martyn Moffat; Canberra Birds
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Five Koels in Backyard

 

Wow Martyn! That's so cool! Thanks for sharing this observation. The males were likely fighting over the females. I saw a similar thing happen in Sydney last year between two males while a female was close by. They both puffed out their feathers, fanned their tails, and "hunched" over, making themselves look as big as possible and gave their "wurroo" calls until the female flew off and then they followed her.

 

This behaviour has also been described in a paper by Pratt (1970).

 

Cheers,

Virginia


From: Martyn Moffat m("bigpond.com","mp.moff");"> <>
Sent: 18 November 2015 07:55
To: Canberra Birds
Subject: [canberrabirds] Five Koels in Backyard

 

Last night at 8 o’clock I had 3 male Pacific/Eastern Koels in a tree in my backyard. They formed a triangle about 1.5 m from each other. They acted aggressively  to each other with loud calling and what I can only describe as a tail shuffle.

 

Two females perched on the power line 1 m apart and 5 m from the males.

 

The noise from their calls was very loud. Some of the neighbours thought that they were OK, others wanted them gone. I thought they were fantastic. I have never seen 5 Koels so close together before.

 

Martyn Moffat


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