Thanks Andrew.
Now to get out my binoculars and watch the male and females do their
different stuff.
Strange to me if they often travel 1 male and 2 females (so I was told
off-list), then I would think the females, not the males, would be calling
early in the season for mating rights.
But according to this, I'm hearing the males early on and the females at the
end of the season.
'Tis a curious creation!
Cheers
Gordon in Schofields
-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Taylor
Sent: Friday, 10 November 2006 1:58 PM
To: Gordon and Pam Cain
Cc:
Subject: Seasonal variation in koel calls
On Sat, Nov 04, 2006 at 05:46:35PM +1100, Gordon and Pam Cain wrote:
> Our koels who've just arrived are doing their typical early season,
> two-syllable call -- to us it sounds like 'all-right. . . all-right. . .'.
> but by the end of the season they have all given up that call and begin
> their much more rapid, one-syllable call -- perhaps
> 'Wheet-wheet-wheet-wheet-wheet'.
> Forgetting my transcription problems, why?
Your Wheet-wheet-... call is probably the call transliterated as "keek"
in HANZAB and said to be uttered by females only.
And your "all-right" call is probably the call transliterated as "coo-ee"
in HANZAB and said to be uttered by males only.
As its plausible that either females arrive later or call less earlier
the season, its hard to say more.
Here in inner Sydney and in Brisbane according to an Emu paper by
Maller&Jones the "wurroo" call (said to be males only) is more uttered
later in the a season. Earlier in the season "coo-ee" calls dominate.
But I've just returned from a week in the Top End where interestingly
"wurroo" calls seemed much more common than "coo-ee" calls, e.g. at
Mataranka I heard 3+ individuals making "wurroo" calls at sunset.
Andrew
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