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| Asian Koel | ||||||||||||||
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 Female (nominate race)
_I_IMG_8190.jpg) Male (nominate race)
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| Eudynamys scolopaceus Linnaeus, 1758 |
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Cuculus scolopaceus |
The Asian Koel or Common Koel2 (Eudynamys scolopacea) is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, the Cuculiformes. It is found in South Asia, China, and Southeast Asia into Australia. Populations of this wide ranging species differ slightly and some subspecies are considered full species. They are brood parasites that lay their eggs in the nests of crows, with the young being raised by crows. They are unusual among the cuckoos in being largely frugivorous as adults.3
The word koel also means "nightingale" in India because of the Indian Koel's melodious call. It is also colloquially known as the Rainbird or Stormbird in eastern Australia, as its call is said to foreshadow rain.
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Description
-_Male_close_up_in_Kolkata_I_IMG_7568.jpg)
The Asian Koel is a large, long-tailed, cuckoo at 45 cm. The male of the nominate race is glossy bluish-black, with a pale green or grey bill, the iris is red, and it has grey legs and feet. The female of the nominate race is brownish on the crown and has rufous streaks on the head. The back, rump and wing coverts are dark brown with white and buff spots. The underparts are whitish, but is heavily striped. The other subspecies differ in colouration and size.2
They are very vocal during the breeding season (March to August in South Asia), with a range of different calls. The familiar song of the male is a repeated koo-Ooo. The female makes a shrill kik-kik-kik... call. Calls vary between the races.2
They show a pattern of moult that differs from other parasitic cuckoos. The outer primaries show transilient ascending moult (P9-7-5-10-8-6) while the inner primaries are moulted in stepwise descending order (1-2-3-4).(Payne citing Stresemann and Stresemann 19612)
Subspecies
The Asian Koel was originally described by Linnaeus as Cuculus scolopaceus based on a specimen that he received from the Malabar region.2 About fifteen subspecies are recognized with some like cyanocephala and melanorhyncha treated by some authors as full species:2
- Eudynamys scolopacea scolopacea (Linnaeus, 1758); Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Laccadives, Maldives;
- Eudynamys scolopacea chinensis (Cabanis and Heine,1863); southern China, continental Indochina;
- Eudynamys scolopacea harterti (Ingram, 1912); Hainan;
- Eudynamys scolopacea malayana (Cabanis and Heine, 1863); S Burma,Thailand, Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Bangka, Lesser Sundas, Lombok,Sumbawa, Satonda, ?Komodo, Flores, Besar, Paloe),Borneo; (This may include the race dolosa described from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands)
- Eudynamys scolopacea mindanensis (Linnaeus,1766) (includes E. s. paraguena (Hachisuka, 1934),from Palawan, and E. s. corvina (Stresemann, 1931),from Halmahera); the Philippines (including Palawan and Babuyanes Islands), islands NE of Sulawesi (Talaud Islands (Karakelong,Lirung), Sangihe, Siau, Ruang, Manterawu); northern Moluccas (Morotai, Halmahera, Ternate, Tidore, Moti, Bacan);
- Eudynamys scolopacea rufiventer (Lesson, 1830); New Guinea (except southern Irian Jaya);
- Eudynamys scolopacea minima van Oordt 1911;southwestern New Guinea;
- Eudynamys scolopacea salvadorii Hartert, 1900; Bismarck Archipelago;
- Eudynamys scolopacea hybrida Diamond, 2000;Long Island, between New Guinea and New Britain;
- Eudynamys scolopacea alberti Rothschild and Hartert, 1907; Solomon Islands;
- Eudynamys scolopacea melanorhyncha S. Müller, 1843; Sulawesi, Banggai, Muna, Togian Islands, Peleng and Sula Islands (Taliabu, Seho); (This race has multiple female plumage morphs.2)
- Eudynamys scolopacea orientalis (Linnaeus, 1766)(includes E. s. picata S. Müller, 1843); C and S Moluccas (Buru, Manipa, Kelang, Seram, Ambon, Tujuh,Watubela Islands);
- Eudynamys scolopacea everetti Hartert 1900; Sumba to Timor and Roma, Kai Islands;
- Eudynamys scolopacea cyanocephala (Latham 1801);Torres Strait islands north to Boigu and Darnley, N and E Queensland, west to the lower Norman River and north to Cape York and islands off the east coast as far as the Capricorn group, and in New South Wales;
- Eudynamys scolopacea subcyanocephala Mathews, 1912; northern Australia (Western Australia, Northern Territories, western Queensland south to Mt Isa and Dolomote and east to the Cloncurry); migrant to New Guinea.
Distribution and habitat
The Asian Koel is a bird of light woodland and cultivation. It is a mainly resident breeder in tropical southern Asia from India and Sri Lanka to south China and Australasia. Birds at the fringes of the range, such as much of Eastern Australia, and on high ground are summer visitors, migrating to warmer areas in winter. They have great potential in colonizing new areas. They first arrived in Singapore in the 1980s and became very common birds.2
Some populations may make long distance movements. A Koel ringed in New South Wales, Australia was recovered 2950 km away in New Guinea.2
Behaviour
The Asian Koel is a brood parasite, and lays its single egg in the nests of a variety of birds, including the Jungle Crow,4 House Crow and various species of honeyeater. It was the first bird to be documented as a brood parasite.5 In Sri Lanka it was known to parasitize only the Jungle Crow until the 1880 and later shifted to the House Crow.6 About 5% of Corvus splendens nests and 0.5% of Corvus macrorhynchos nests were found to be parasitized in India.7 In Southern Thailand and the Malay Peninsula, Koels have shifted host from Crows to Mynas (Acridotheres sp.) as the latter became more common in the late 1900s.2 In Australia their hosts are mainly large honeyeaters (especially Noisy Friarbirds Philemon corniculatus and Red Wattlebirds Anthochaera carunculata).2 In India they have been found to parasitize Black-headed Orioles8 and the Black Drongo. Males may distract the hosts so that the female gets a chance to lay an egg in the nest. More often however, the female visits the nest of the host alone.2 Koels usually lay only an egg or two in a single nest but as many as seven to eleven eggs have been found in some nests.91011 A female may remove a host egg before laying. Eggs hatch in 12 to 14 days. The young Koel does not always evict its host's chicks, and initially calls like a crow. The young fledge in 20 to 28 days.2 Unlike in other cuckoos, the young do not attempt to kill the host chicks. This trait is shared with the Channel-billed Cuckoos Scythrops novaehollandiae which are also largely frugivorous as adults.12 The adult female koels may not leave their offspring entirely to the hosts.13 Adult males have not been noted to feed fledglings.2 This behaviour of brood parasites feeding their young is seen in several other species.1415 A study of vocalization noted that the duetting behaviour may indicate the possibility of short-term pair-bonding in the otherwise polygynous mating system.16
They were once very popular in India as cagebirds. Feeding even on boiled rice, these hardy birds lived in captivity for as long as 14 years.17
Diet
The Asian Koel is omnivorous, consuming a variety of insects, caterpillars, eggs and small vertebrates. Adults feed mainly on fruit. They will sometimes defend fruiting trees and chase away other frugivores.18 They have been noted to be especially important in the dispersal of the sandalwood tree (Santalum album) in India. Large seeded fruits are quickly regurgitated near the parent tree while small seeded fruits are ingested and are likely to be deposited at greater distances from the parent tree.19 They have a large gape and are capable of eating large fruits, regurgitating seeds and thereby also dispersing plants. It has occasionally been known to take eggs of small birds.2021
They feed on the fruits of Thevetia peruviana which are known to be toxic to mammals.2223
Calls of male, India Other calls
In culture
Four thousand year old Sanskrit literature referred to it as Anya-Vapa which meant "that was raised by others".2
Notes
- ^ BirdLife International (2004). Eudynamys scolopaceus. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 02 May 2007.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Payne, R. B. 2005. The Cuckoos. Oxford University Press.
- ^ Corlett, RT & IKW Ping (1995) Frugivory by Koels in Hong Kong. Mem. Hong Kong Nat. Hist. Soc. 20:221-222 PDF
- ^ Goodwin D. (1983). Crows of the World, Queensland University Press, St Lucia, Qld. ISBN 0-7022-1015-3.
- ^ Friedmann, Herbert (1965). "The History of our Knowledge of Avian Brood Parasitism". Centaurus 10 (4): 282-304. doi:.
- ^ Phillips, W. W. A. (1948). Cuckoo problems of Ceylon. Spolia Zeylanica 25:45-60
- ^ Lamba, B. S. (1976). The Indian crows: a contribution to their breeding biology, with notes on brood parasitism on them by the Indian Koel. Records of the Zoological Survey of India, 71, 183–300.
- ^ Sethi, V. K., Saxena, V and Bhatt, D. 2006. An instance of the Asian Koel Eudynamys scolopacea destroying the nest of a Black-headed Oriole Oriolus xanthornus. Indian Birds 2(6):173-174
- ^ Jacob,JR (1915) Seven Koel's eggs in one nest. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 24(1):191-192.
- ^ Jones,AE (1916) Number of Koel's E. honorata eggs found in one nest. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 24(2):370.
- ^ Abdulali,H (1931) Eleven Koel eggs in a Crow's nest. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 35(2):458.
- ^ Mark Broom, Graeme D. Ruxton and Rebecca M. Kilner (2007) Host life-history strategies and the evolution of chick-killing by brood parasitic offspring. Behavioral Ecology doi:10.1093/beheco/arm096 http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/arm096v1
- ^ Lydekker, R. (1895) The Royal Natural History. Volume 4. page 8
- ^ Janice C. Lorenzana and Spencer G. Sealy (1998) Adult brood parasites feeding nestlings and fledglings of their own species: A review. J. Field Ornithol., 69(3):364-375 [1]
- ^ Fulton, R. 1904. The Kohoperoa or Koekoea, Long-tailed Cuckoo (Urodynamis taitensis): an account of its habits, description of a nest containing its (supposed) egg, and a suggestion as to how the parasitic habit in birds has become established. Trans. N. Z. Inst. 36:113-148.
- ^ Cecily J. Maller and Darryl N. Jones (2001) Vocal behaviour of the Common Koel, Eudynamys scolopacea, and implications for mating systems. Emu 101(2):105-112
- ^ Law, Satya Churn (1923) Pet birds of Bengal. Vol. 1. Thacker and Spink. pages 315-316 Scanned
- ^ Pratt, Thane K. (1984) Examples of tropical frugivores defending fruit-bearing plants. The Condor 86:123-129 PDF
- ^ Hegde, S G, R Uma Shaanker & KN Ganeshaiah (1991) Evolution of seed size in the bird-dispersed tree Santalum album L.: a trade off between seedling establishment and dispersal efficiency. Evol. Trends. Plants 5:131-135
- ^ Uttangi, J. C. 2004. Robbing of eggs by female Koel, from the nest of Red-whiskered Bulbul (Pycnonotus jocosus). Newsletter for Birdwatchers 44 (5): 77.
- ^ Purefoy,AE Bagwell (1947) The Koel as an egg-stealer. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 46(4):723.
- ^ Kannan,R (1991) Koels feeding on the yellow oleander. Blackbuck. 7(2):48.
- ^ Krishnan, M (1952) Koels (Eudynamis scolopaceus) eating the poisonous fruit of the Yellow Oleander. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 50(4):943-945.
References
- Grimmett, Richard; Inskipp, Carol, Inskipp, Tim & Byers, Clive (1999): Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.. ISBN 0-691-04910-6
- Slater, Peter & Calaby, John H. (1970): A field guide to Australian birds (Non-passerines). Rigby, Adelaide. ISBN 0-85179-102-6
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