Photo Credits: pg 3- anchor
It is very common for people who wake up early in the morning to listen to the sweet Koo-Ooo Koo-Ooo call of the rather nondescript Asian Koel, a bird with which we are extremely familiar with since childhood especially due to their intricate link with our folklore and our childhood stories. The Asian Koel was originally described by Carl Linnaeus who is often referred to as the father of taxonomy based on a specimen he received from the Malabar region. Today, there are five different sub-species that are recognized with distribution from India stretching all the way to the ends of south-east Asia.
The Asian Koel is a large, long-tailed, cuckoo measuring 39 to 46 cm in size. The male has glossy bluish-black body, with a pale greenish grey bill, the iris is crimson, and has grey legs, feet. The female 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 Asian Koel prefers woodlands and any area with good tree growth. It is a resident breeder throughout its range though there are some local migration events that have been recorded. These birds are mostly frugivorous, that is they prefer to eat fruits, but on occasions they have also been noted to feed on a variety of insects, caterpillars, eggs and small vertebrates. They are considered as important dispers of seeds and have been noted to be an important seed disper of sandalwood trees in India.
The Asian koel is a brood parasite, and lays its egg in the nests of a variety of other birds. The most preferred hosts seem to be the House Crow and the Jungle Crow, while brood parasitization has also been noted in Long-tailed Shrike, Common Myna, Black Drongo, and Black-headed Oriole. Koels usually lay only one egg per nest but cases of multiple eggs being laid have also been reported. The female may remove a host egg before laying her own egg but this does not happen always. Eggs hatch in 12 to 14 days.
The young koel does not always push out eggs or evict the host chicks as it is popularly believed, and initially calls like a crow. It is said that female Koels have host specificity that is, they will lay eggs in the nest of the same species which raised it when it was young. So, if a female Koel was raised by the House Crow, she will lay her eggs too in a House Crow’s nest.
International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the Asian Koel as Least Concerned in terms of conservation prioritization due to its large range and population. In 2007, the union territory of Puducherry declared the Asian Koel as its state bird.
Image Credit: Kanak Bakre
