The Asian Koel (Eudynamys scolopaceus) will certainly win hands, eh claws, down when it comes to owning distinct differences between the male and female.
Whilst the gentleman is glossy-blue-black with distinct red eyes (and could easily be mistaken for a crow in unflattering light), the lady has dark brownish plumage with whitish spots on upper-parts and barrings on under-parts, lovely and striking overall.
Unfortunately the male is one that many love to hate for its incessant 'love' call, or more simply, wake-up call for many who are 'privileged' to its loud repetitive Ku-oo crescendo especially in the early morning.
And this morning the lady bird was found to play hard to get, or simply flirting?
It had flown in quietly from somewhere whilst the male had been calling for a pretty prolonged period from one corner of the taman to another (which made me wonder if that is a characteristic of the koel courtship which explains why the male always calls out continuously and loudly because the female plays hard to get?)
The female obviously knew that the male was around the way it scanned about.
I had earlier seen the male across the river and thought that it was eyeing a fig fruit for its lady. Seen against the light, this is indeed one black bird, dark on both the outer and under-parts.
Flying in for its female target the male was seen to forage first (I guessed the fig fruit was not suitable), and when it finally did hop on to where the female was, she decided to flee, so it looked like the male wasn't going to get it easy!
Or was the offering too miniscule! Looked like a tiny insect!
Although the Koel feeds mainly on fruits, it is omnivorous, going after insects and caterpillars.
And our ladyship has indeed flown to a nearby palm tree, returning backward glances to which unfortunately there were no responses as there was no pursuit.
The only pursuit being me as I tried for better images which promptly caused the female to flee way across into the tallest tree!
No comments:
Post a Comment