By Catherine Watson

REMEMBER the eastern koel with the infuriating mating call? (Sounds like trouble, Dec 9 2024) Well it clearly worked because koel babies are popping up everywhere.
 
The adult koels are notoriously hard to spot but Liane Arno managed to locate and photograph “the varmint” in her Wonthaggi garden back in November. Now she’s done it again by spotting and photographing a junior varmint after hearing an unusual call in her garden.
 
Though it took her some time to put the pieces of the jigsaw together. She writes: “I thought it was an immature wattlebird because that’s who’s been feeding it!  It must be the varmint.  Look at the size difference!”

​Frank Schooneveldt warned us back when our first story appeared: “The Eastern koel likes to lay its eggs in Red Wattlebird nests.”

And from the Australian Museum: A single egg is laid in the host's nest and once hatched the chick forces the other eggs and hatchlings out of the nest. When the chick leaves the nest it roosts in the outer branches of a tree, cheeping incessantly while the significantly smaller parents desperately search for sufficient food to satisfy the nagging youngster.
 
Not often you feel sorry for the raucous wattlebirds but here they are raising these big fat imposter bludgers loudly demanding “More! More! More!” from dawn to dusk. (Why don’t they recognise the imposter, given it’s nearly twice their size?)
 
The Australian Museum also reports that during breeding season, the koels are found “south to about Nowra, although occasional birds are encountered further south”.
 
The information needs updating as they have clearly decided Bass Coast suits them just fine, according to Post readers who reported hearing the male koel’s call from Inverloch to Phillip Island and all places inbetween. We now have our own koel population, born and bred in Bass Coast. And, like human offspring, they will insist on coming back for the summer holidays every year.
 
In a couple of months koels are supposed to head north to spend the winter in more tropical climes: northern Australia, New Guinea and Indonesia. Which raises some interesting questions. Given that the young koels have been raised by wattlebirds and have had nothing to do with other koels, how will they know when to leave and how to get to New Guinea? 

​Birdoes, please ... 

By Catherine Watson
 
IN THE introduction to Gippsland’s Field Naturalists, the editors quote Professor Jones of Hull University: “Research is organised play for adults.”
 
And so it is for the 16 noted local naturalists featured in this book: Mae Adams, Terri Allen, Beth Banks, Mary Ellis, Geoff Glare, Ken Harris, Lorraine Norden, Alison Oates, Barbara Oates, Margaret Rowe, Wendy Savage, Mike Tesch, Dave Sutton, Gary Wallis, Jack Weerts and Marja Bouman.
 
I’m lucky enough to have met many of them over the past decade and was fascinated to read the back story of how they came to be so involved and erudite. There is no egotism about their learning. They are generous in sharing and learning from one another.