{"id":275068,"date":"2010-02-04T01:12:45","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T06:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gordonmoyes.com\/2010\/02\/04\/those-noisy-koels\/"},"modified":"2010-02-04T01:12:45","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T06:12:45","slug":"those-noisy-koels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/275068","title":{"rendered":"Those Noisy Koels"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The other day, for the first time in the 25 years that we have had our acreage on the Central Coast of NSW<\/span>, I heard a common koel. It didn’t fill me with pleasure. Although found in all areas of northern and eastern Australia, these members of the cuckoo family are migrating further south every year. In fact, in the northern suburbs of Sydney most people regard them as one of the noisiest bird pests of this time of the year.<\/p>\n

They are hard to spot unless you look carefully for the source of their particular cry. The male koel has glossy black plumage tinged with a greenish colour and a distinctive red eye. The much quieter female is brown with white flecks, and cream and black bars. As part of the cuckoo family, the birds are shy and are heard more than seen. The adults are about the same size as a magpie. In shrubs and bushes they seem to be clumsy, knocking into the branches as they seek their berries.<\/p>\n

Male koels advertise their presence by repeated calling. Females are attracted to the males’ calls and they produce a ‘keek-keek-keek-keek’ call of their own in reply. The young are easier to spot, as they are extremely demanding of food from the adult birds of other species that inadvertently have adopted them. They beg loudly for food from their hapless foster parents.<\/p>\n

Most koels migrate from Australia to New Guinea and probably eastern Indonesia and even further north. But from September to March they come south for breeding, along the Eastern Coast down to, roughly, the Illawarra. Like other cuckoos, the common koel is a brood parasite. That is, they lay an egg in the nests of other bird species. Common hosts are the red wattlebird, honeyeaters, friarbirds, the magpie-lark and fig birds. We see them paying a great deal of attention to the magpie nests.<\/p>\n

Once hatched the chick forces the other eggs and hatchlings out of the nest to die. When the chick leaves the nest it roosts nearby in the outer branches of a tree, cheeping incessantly while the significantly smaller parents desperately search for sufficient food to satisfy the nagging youngster.<\/p>\n

This is a full-time job, as the young koel will grow to nearly twice the size of its adoptive parents. Eventually it migrates northwards, usually later than the adults, to return as a breeding bird the following spring. The female, while she only lays a single egg in any host nest, will visit many nests and lay many single eggs.<\/p>\n

Experts suggest that an increase in the number of host birds such as the wattle bird is the reason why the number of koels is increasing along with the females’ habit of laying eggs in multiple nests. Common koels feed almost entirely in the canopy of trees. Food consists of fruits, especially figs, and native berries such as from the Lilli Pilli.<\/p>\n

The common koel male advertises its presence by a loud ascending whistle or ‘koo-el’, monotonously repeated. They call throughout the day and well into the night. That is why residents of the leafy north shore of Sydney write complaining letters to the papers. One complainant wrote: “I cannot believe the length and number of discussions that have been generated over this Cuckoo. A bird with the most irritating and monotonous call known, and why anyone in their correct mind would want to know where it can be found so they can listen to it again is beyond me. It is sometimes called the fever bird and according to folklore supposed to send some people mad. I can now see some evidence supporting this so called “Old wives tale” with those smitten being commonly called “Cuckoo”! Not without reason I may add!”<\/p>\n

Now you can understand that when I heard them calling it did not fill me with pleasure. I will watch their numbers in future.<\/p>\n

Rev the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day, for the first time in the 25 years that we have had our acreage on the Central Coast of NSW, I heard a common koel. It didn’t fill me with pleasure. Although found in all areas of northern and eastern Australia, these members of the cuckoo family are migrating further south every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}