If I’ve been complaining I hadn’t seen a Koel this season, at least until early this month, this afternoon I saw 6, 4 males and 2 females. I followed up a ruckus in the small park near my home in Rivett, in previous years a favoured spot,
and first found 2 males within a metre of each other in a large gum, quite active towards each other including whoaing. I thought they were also making the kek kek female call but then found her a few metres away. I then followed up another set of calling
about 50 m away in a silky oak to where I had seen a male fly on arrival, and found 2 males very close together (<1 m) facing each other, relatively immobile except for when calling. One was in very exaggerated frozen forward leaning position with tail up,
wings down, while the other in a normal position appeared to be a young male with still some light patches. Again I thought they may have been giving the female call before a I found one a few metres away. From the calling I couldn’t rule out other birds
nearby, and about 20 minutes later one was still ko-eling very loudly closer to our house.
I’m just starting to find the second brood of RWB fledglings around, so you might expect a Koel fledgling fed by them near you soon. Jack Holland
