Eastern Koel

Around about now, the familiar, persistent call ‘ko-ell, ko-ell…’ will begin to ring through the streets and parklands of Drouin, especially in the mornings and evenings, and sometimes at night.

The Eastern Koel is a summer migrant that arrives in spring and departs mid to late summer to return to northern Australia and Papua New Guinea. Some field guides may not have its distribution down the eastern seaboard reaching as far as Victoria, but the Eastern Koel has been known to visit these parts for some years now. Anecdotally, its numbers are increasing in southern Victoria. Its migratory patterns are not fully understood.

The Eastern Koel, Eudynamys orientalis, (Eudynamys = fine and power or strength – apparently referring to its call, and orientalis = from the east) has had numerous common names in the past: Pacific Koel, Common Koel, Indian Koel, Black Cuckoo, Cooee Bird, Stormbird, Flinders’ Cuckoo, et al.

The Eastern Koel is a member of the Cuculidae or cuckoo family. Like all cuckoos, it is a brood parasite that lays its eggs in other birds’ nests, relying on the unsuspecting host parents to rear the koel’s hatchlings. Eastern Koels like to lay their eggs in nests of wattlebirds and Magpie Larks in particular. While Drouin has a healthy population of wattlebirds and mudlarks, we will continue to be visited by koels.The female koel is able to time the laying of her eggs, one only in each nest, so that its hatches around the same time as that of the host birds’ eggs. The young koel chick grows quickly and soon outcompetes the hosts chicks for food or even sometimes ejecting the hosts chicks from the nest.

Male Eastern Koel. Image credit Australian Museum

The Eastern Koel is not always easy to spot, even when you seem to be standing under the tree it is calling from. The bird is particularly adept at remaining secluded in the canopy. Some say its call can have a ventriloqual effect making it harder to pin point. It is the male that does the calling and the female is mostly silent.

Adult Eastern Koels are mainly fruit-eaters. Nestlings generally take whatever food items the host parents bring them – insects, worms, etc. The male Eastern Koel is pretty much an all black bird with a red eye, about the size of a magpie. The female is a lighter coloured bird with barring on the tail and chest, and white spots on the back.

So, is it, “Welcome to Drouin, cruel koel”? ‘ko-ell, ko-ell…’ is certainly a harbinger of spring.