Wednesday, November 4, 2020

Koels Are Gow-Wows, And Visa Versa

Many languages around the world name certain birds for their calls. This is true in English, and it is also true in Thai. The different languages hear the same bird-call and render it in their languages in a manner that may be quite dissimilar.

The bird of instant impression has a range that includes parts of India, the southern edge of China, all of South East Asia, extending to the northern reaches of Australia. In English we have named the bird a koel, after its call, and in Thai, it is named a gow-wow, also after its call. It is a two note call, and to my enthusiastic but amateurish musical ear it sounds like a first and a fifth, like, “one-five...one-five.” I don't have a piano handy, or I'd describe it more definitively. I think “gow-wow” comes closer to mimicking the urgency of it than “koel” does. It is an insistent call, usually repeated between two and five times in quick succession, and modulating up about one step each time. It is, I believe, a mating call. Hence the urgency.

The Koels in Australia are called either Eastern Koels, or Pacific Koels. All of the ones north of Australia are known, in English, as Asian Koels. In Thai, they are called, “Nok Gow-Wow.” (“Bird, gow-wow.") They are a good sized bird, somewhere between a Blue Jay and a Crow. The males are black, with bright red irises. The females are kind of a mint-brown, and heavily speckled. They have very long tail feathers, noticeably long in flight. They have sturdy beaks, with a raptor like hook at the end.

To me, they will always be the sound of Thailand.

The call of the Gow-Wow is very loud, and it really carries over distance. I came to Thailand with the Peace Corps, at the tender age of fifty-five. All Peace Corps travel must be on American owned carriers, so we flew United to Tokyo, waited around for about eight hours, and then took a Northwest Orient flight to Bangkok. It was the first week in January. We got in after midnight, went through some kind of official process, piled onto buses and drove to our training site, arriving at our hotel after four a.m. We were told to report downstairs to begin our training at 8:00 o'clock.

Not having slept for about thirty-five hours, I slept like a dead man until my travel alarm went off. (No smart-phones in those days, only sixteen years ago.) I heard the strange sound as soon as I was awake. I walked out onto the balcony, and without the windows closed and the air-con on it sounded very loud for a bird. It was clearly a bird, though. A bird that was completely unfamiliar to me.

The hotel was one of the many called “the Riverside Hotel.” There is always a river nearby in Thailand, and half of the hotels and restaurants that are located on a river bank are named, “Riverside.” Those river banks are the favorite habitats for the Gow-Wows. I asked one of the Peace Corps staff about it within a few days. There is a considerable permanent staff of Thais working for Peace Corps. I speculated that it must be a pretty large bird, but she said, no, it's quite small. It was years before I saw one. All I knew was the call, and it took me years even to figure out that it was in my “Birds of Thailand” as a Common Koel, a name that is no longer used.

My arrival was timed just right to meet the Gow-Wow. They are only here from late October to February or so. I guess they come down temporarily from China when it gets cold up there. November to February is the “Cold Season,” aka, “the Winter,” in Thailand, but that's really some kind of in-joke. Thailand is hot all year. (There are three seasons in Thailand: hot, very hot, and hot with rain.)

Now that I love Thailand, and am completely acclimatized to the tropical lifestyle, I look forward to October and waking up to the sound of the Gow-Wows. For one thing, it means that the rain will stop and temperatures will be moderating presently. They are shy birds, and generally stay out of sight, but evidently they wake up at dawn's first dim light feeling frisky. Like I say, they make a powerful noise for a bird about the size of a pigeon. It is, for me, a wonderful and welcoming sound, the sound of being in Thailand.

I can duplicate the call of the Gow-Wow exactly, and I can tell you that it has a powerful effect on bird populations that are unfamiliar with it. I visited my “home” in Los Angeles ten years in a row, and my neighborhood there is full of big trees and a large, various bird population. There's even a flock of those Argentinian Green Parrots. Birds make a territorial display right before twilight. One or two of the stronger young males will fly out of their tree directly to a spot that is both high and highly visible. Like a television antenna, or an electrical wire. The neighborhood has some bad-ass birds in it. Lots of California Jays, lots of crows, lots of those huge, black California Ravens. They're all out there, big and small, doing their display. As darkness approaches, after they all have each other's attention, they fly in a straight line to their tree. They are announcing that this is where WE live, this is OUR tree. I love to watch this whole show from my back yard. Just for fun, I would sometimes give a loud Gow-Wow call, or several in a row. It created a furor among the assembled birds! Even the Crows and Ravens looks back and forth nervously. As I mentioned, it is a loud, powerful call.

The Sound of Thailand.

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