- Eudynamys scolopacea
Identification
45 cm. Male - bluish-black, pale green bill, red eyes, grey legs and feet. Female - brownish above and whitish below, heavily striped and spotted brown on the underparts and white on the upperparts, olive or green beak and red eyes.
Distribution
Found from southern Asia, China, and into Australia.
Taxonomy
Formerly also "Common Koel".
Asian Koel with thirteen subspecies were split from Australian Koel and Black-billed Koel by some authorities, however, others still think that the best treatment is to consider all three as one species which would then be named Common Koel, Eudynamys scolopacea.
At least one authority goes the other way and want to split subspecies orientalis from the rest of Asian Koel: the new species if accepted would become Pacific Koel, Eudynamys orientalis.
Habitat
Light woodland and cultivation.
Behaviour
A brood parasite, it lays a single egg.
The diet includes insects, caterpillars, eggs and small vertebrates. Adults feed mainly on fruit. It has occasionally been known to take eggs of small birds.
