I heard my first clear Koel call from my GBS site in Chapman late Monday afternoon, it was the female kek kek kek, with more distant whoas given in response. Since that time there has been much calling activity, more so than I can remember
for mid October. and interestingly over the past few days including this morning much of it the ko-el call.
However, around 10:30 this morning one flew kek kekking through our GBS site towards some whoas, the birds than circled back and landed on wires and a bare tree in a neighbour’s back yard. Very soon the black male mounted the female and
they copulated, before again giving both calls and flying off. Interestingly the male seemed quite a bit larger than the female, something I haven’t noticed before, but it might have been an illusion.
The first Red Wattlebird fledgling of the season was noticed in my garden about 5 weeks ago, the juvenile is still begging very loudly and restricted to around 50 m of my bushy back fence even though I suspect it has been independent for
at least a couple of weeks. This month I have observed begging fledglings in at least 6 other local areas, so the Koels would appear to be targeting the second brood. While the copulation event is about as early as I can recall, it does fit in with the first
Koel fledgling for late November/early December as has happened over the past few years. Certainly these days females arrive around the same time as males, and breeding activity commences almost as soon as they arrive.
Jack Holland
