The Cuckoo Has Landed
For some
time, perhaps three months, we have been fascinated by a melodic but unfamiliar
bird call, emanating from a magnificent Silky Oak tree, three doors up from our
home. Judging by the volume and clarity of the call, the suspect bird needed to
be a very large one. Almost every evening we have noticed its lovely call,
making us determined to locate and distinguish the source.
This
morning, with a 400C (1040F) day forecast, the garden
needed to be watered well to withstand the searing temperatures. As I completed
the watering of young plants in pots, there was a rustle at ground level.
Suddenly, a large mottled bird flapped up on to our garden seat. A little
apprehensive, but not overly frightened, the bird tolerated my presence and
began to cheep, at first regularly, then later demandingly: it was clearly a
baby seeking out its mother.
Its
behaviour appeared to indicate that it had come to our yard in search of water:
it sipped droplets of water from the leaves of our blooming jackfruit tree
while it waited for its parent to respond to its cries.
Having
photographed and videoed the performance, I retired to the house to research
the bird I had stumbled upon. It was an Eastern Koel (Asian or Pacific Koel), a
member of the cuckoo family of birds. According to my research, the black, male
Eastern Koel migrates to northern and eastern Australia from Papua New Guinea
and Eastern Indonesia during September and October for the purpose of breeding.
The buff-cream and black-barred females arrive soon afterwards.
Because
these birds are members of the cuckoo family, they parasitise the nests of some
larger native birds. Keeping in mind that the young Koel is an enormous bird,
it must be quite a trial for their foster parents to feed a most insistent
baby.
The Koels fly
back to warmer climes in March, so we should have the pleasure of the melodic
song for a few more weeks. Whether, we see the birds again is another matter:
they are apparently very shy.
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