David, while my local Koels in Chapman/Rivett seem to have departed during February, as they have done in the past couple of years, it is not unusual for them still to be recorded in March and even into early April.
For example the 2012-2103 Annual Bird Report (ABR) indicates that the last GBS record was in the 2nd week of April, and the 2013-2014 ABR notes the last general record was on 29 March (the last GBS record was in 2nd week March).
In her article about adults and juveniles utilising the fig trees in her Flynn garden in 2015 [CBN 40, p162 (2015)] , Christine D notes she saw the last juvenile on 25 March, which is consistent with the above data.
Regards
Jack Holland
From:
Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2016 11:45 AM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Departure of Koels
The various books on Canberra’s birds are old enough that some record no breeding activity of Koels. The numbers and breeding activity of Koels in Canberra has clearly been increasing rapidly over the past decade or so.
Can someone point me to the most recent data that indicate the likely end-of-season timing? I still have Koels in my street in Deakin as of today (6 March). I would have thought that is rather late.
Other unusual observations for my GBS this week: 2 Noisy Friarbirds and one Grey Butcherbird. Yesterday (5 March) was a bit of an early Autumn bonanza with 16 species and something approaching 100 birds in a 20 minute peruse of the street
at about 8am – a good start to the post-leap day GBS record.
David Rosalky
