Our elders say it’s time to celebrate the New Year, when the Koha cries out loud. Ornithologists tell us that it’s their breeding season to charm mates, which has nothing to do with any festivity. Twitchers have something to say too: Koha makes that sound mostly from March to August. Koha’s mating call, in Sri Lankan culture, beckons us to rejoice over the prosperity in April.
It’s not so hard to locate the Koha when you trawl the Google with keywords ‘Asian Koel’. Koel belongs to Cuckoo family; most of the cuckoos have migrated from Singapore to settle down here. The Asian Koel is quite welcome, because we like to hear its call to feel the Avurudu stepping in.
Towards March’s end we can see scarlet coloured Erabadu, erythrina indica blossom to lure the Koha to make his announcement. Who knows, possibly the songbird knows its voice has such a melodious tone to charm the would-be significant other. You may hear its sound, but still as ornithologists say, its sight might be thin on the ground. Because Koha is such a coy creature. It’s sometimes seen settled down in deserted areas with its partner. The countries of its residence are mostly India, South China, Australasia. The male koel sings to charm the female and the female sings at a stretch to stay away from other males. Once settled down, they need space to themselves, after all.
Koel has a bad name for its nestling habits. Ornithologists call the poor creature a brood parasite. Which means he never builds his own nest but lays eggs on others. Its hosts - the victims, of course - are always Jungle Crow and House Crow in Sri Lanka, because their eggs look quite similar on the surface. A koel egg is grayish green with red-brown flecks. The crow egg however has a brighter brown colour. The koel is born with that knack for making the maximum of the other bird’s charity. It has a very good sense of nests; it lays only one or two eggs in some nests and seven or eight in most. For the koel, doing away with the crow’s eggs is easy as pie. Koel’s eggs hatch much earlier than those of the crow’s. It’s a menace for the crow, but pity, it can’t help. Sometimes the crow will fly far away never to come back. So the koel has more free time to think big on other affairs. But, credit where credit is due, some koels are believed to build their own nests close to those of crows.
Nowadays it turns out to be a different kettle of fish. The number of koels has gone up, but their breeding is not much spotted because of the lack of crow nests. Crows on the other hand have a good reputation for their weather expertise. With this long remain of the dry weather, the crows sense a food shortage, hence they have to think better of nestling.
The folklore sees the koel as a weather bird too. Some twitchers believe rain and the koel’s call have a link. But then again ornithologists argue this call is purely for the sake of breeding season and nothing else.
Just like the crow, the koel can eat up anything it comes by. It can be an insect, egg or a fish, but adults are mostly frugivores, creatures fed on fruits. They in fact help trees produce more fruits chasing away other creatures.
The koel is called as ‘nightingale’ in India mainly because of its call sweet to ears. The male koel mostly seem as black as a crow, but it’s mixed with glossy blue. The female is more towards being brown. Underside of the both birds are striped white. Other birds of the family differ in complexion.
http://www.dailynews.lk/2009/03/27/fea30.pdf
