Why is the koel a strange bird ?
Give two reasons
Answers
The run-up to this newsworthy event started on our morning walk, when we heard (what I thought was) an unusual bird call. “But that's just a crow cawing”, she said. ... For like its cousin the cuckoo, the Asian koel is a brood parasite, a creature that manipulates other birds to raise its young.
Answer:
The South West Monsoon has set in and the nippy mornings are punctuated by the mellifluous call of the cuckoo. The bird has been the muse of great poets and writers and cuckoo songs are associated with rains. But have you ever noticed a cuckoo tailing a crow in your neighbourhood. The sight is most likely to take place in the monsoons, when crows start nesting. “Koels and Cuckoos are cousins belonging to the same family. Both the birds lay eggs in the nests of host birds,” says N. Raveendran, a city-based birder. “Koels are entirely dependent on house crows. They have also become common neighbourhood birds over the years. They are parallel bird communities that co-exist. But they have a love-hate relationship.”
The Asian Koel is a crafty avian parasite that’s a dominant aggressive survivor. “It’s a brood parasite. The parent birds would push the eggs of the host to accommodate their eggs. In some cases, even the newly hatched chick pushes the host’s egg off the nest,” reveals Raveendran. “It was startling to see this happen at a nest in the city outskirts. The incubation period of cuckoos is 13 to 16 days and the period for crows is 17 to 20 days. That’s how the cuckoo chicks hatch earlier than crows.”
Explanation: