CHENNAI: Early in the morning, especially during summer, you may have heard a sound repeated about 10 times in quick succession and increasing in pitch each time. You may have thought that it was your own personal alarm, until you realised that it was coming from outside your window. I hope you didn’t mull over it too much, as the sound you heard was the kuvvu kuvvu call of the koel, greeting you as if to say, “Good morning! Have a wonderful day!”
The koel is synonymous with sweet, melodious voices.
Especially so in folklore and poetry, where there are several references to its melodious tunes.
Known as the Asian koel, the bird belongs to the cuckoo family. The male is a glossy bluish-black colour while the female is brownish with whitish and striped under parts.
At my home in Mysore, I see the adult koel, a frugivore, picking ripe red fruit and berries with its beak as it rests on the jamun tree, the Singapore cherry tree, the papaya or even the sandalwood tree.
On the outskirts of the town, I have seen it feed on the red fruit of the peepal, banyan, pomegranate and mulberry trees. These birds help in the process of seed dispersal for several trees.
They are never domesticated. I have never seen one on the ground, or entering homes. Most afternoons, I see them sit idly in the same place for hours.
In my backyard rain pool in Chennai, I had the opportunity to familiarise myself with them better. I saw four males and four females. Some of them were quite young and very handsome.
During the monsoon season, they would spread their wings in the sunlight for a long time after the rain to dry themselves.
During the winter season, they were the last to arrive and perch on the Acacia tree around 7:30 am and sit with the mynas, the kingfishers, the crows, the bulbuls, the parakeets, the drongos and the robins.
During the late spring in March, beautiful small red fruit of a climber grow in clusters on the acacia tree crown and I would see the koels, with their crimson irises illuminated in the sunlight, merrily tossing up the fruit and catching them in their pale green bills and gulping them down one by one.
Unlike crows, which scavenge on fish and meat scraps, adult koels have a healthy diet of a variety of fruit and berries.
Male koels are vocal during the mating season. This is to attract female koels and sometimes to drive away other males. Female koels close by respond to their calls with a kik kik sound. There is sometimes a quick chase between the male and the female. Other birds, such as the crow, chase the koel frequently, but the crow is no match for the koel’s speed.
During winter, they are quiet and make no calls. You hardly notice them.
Although they are very shy and fly away when they sight humans, after several months of getting to know me, they sit on my window ledge without any fear. Several times, I have mimicked their call and to my absolute delight, the male responded every time.
A neighbour’s child was quick to grasp the sound and now always goes kuvvu kuvvu whenever he sees a koel.
Sometimes, I hear the distinct koel threat call. I peep through the window to see a large rat snake around the tree stump. They give a similar call when a mongoose is on the prowl.
During summer, koels mate hiding behind thick trees. Koels do not build their nests but lay eggs in other birds’ nests including crows, mynas, drongos, babblers and even orioles. The male koel distracts the crows and the opportunistic female lays its egg quickly in the crow’s nest.
After a few weeks, I saw a young female koel hiding in the tree branches. The crows were feeding the koels’ young ones along with their own. The young koel demanded food from the crows by opening its red beak. I saw several adult koels present, probably watching the drama.
The young one soon learnt to fly and flew faster than the adult crows.
After several weeks, the young koel becomes a sub-adult, and appears slimmer with brownish-gray lines on its wing.
They feed on caterpillars, insects and invertebrates. Later when they are fully grown, they turn black and start eating fruits.