SWAMP PHEASANT

The swamp pheasant, or pheasant coucal (CENTROPUS PHASIANUS) is also an early bird, and a bird of varied linguistic capabilities.  Folks are apt to associate with him but one note, and that resembling the mellow gurgle of cream from a bottle, “Glooc! glooc! glooc! glooc!” An intimate knowledge of his conversational powers leads one to conclude that there are few birds more widely accomplished in that direction.  He does use the fluid phrase mentioned, but his notes and those of his consort cover quite a range of exclamations and calls.  Just as I write a pair appeal for a just recognition of their accomplishments.  That which I assume to be the lord and master utters a loud resonant “Toom! toom! toom! toom” a smooth trombonic sound, “hollow to the reverberate hills,” which his consort answers with a series of “Tum! tum tum! tum!” on a higher but still harmonious key, and in accelerated tempo.  This, I fancy, is the lover’s serenade, and the soft assenting answer; almost invariably the loud hollow sound is the opening phrase of the duet.  “Sole or responsive to each other’s note,” the birds make the forest resound again during the day, especially in the prime months, and even these notes find varied and pleasing expression.  Free and joyous as a rule, occasionally they seem to indicate sadness and gloom.  During and after a bush fire the birds give to the notes a mournful cadence like the memories of joy that are past, a lament for the destruction of the grass among which last year’s dome-shaped nests were hidden.  The swamp pheasant also utters a contented, self-complacent chuckle, that resembles the “Goo! goo! goo!” of a happy infant, and occasionally a succession of grating, discordant, mocking sounds, “Tcharn! tcharn! tcharn!” The chuckle may be an expression as if gloating over the detection and assimilation of some favourite dainty, and the harsh notes a demonstration of rivalry, anger and hostility.  The more familiar and more frequent note is the “Toom,” repeated about fourteen or sixteen times, and the thinner, softer response.

The bird resembles in plumage a pheasant.  Cumbersome and slow of flight, clumsy in alighting, he frequently loses his equilibrium, and is compelled to use his long tail as a counter-balance, as he jumps from branch to branch ascending a tree, in order to gain elevation, whence to swoop and flop across the intervening space to the next.  When compelled to take wing from a low elevation, the flight is slow and laboured in the extreme.  He is a handsome fellow, the ruling colours being glossy black, brown and reddish chestnut.  One writer describes the bird as half hawk, half pheasant, another as a non-parasitic cuckoo; another “really a cuckoo”; another a swamp or tree parrot with the foot of a lark.  Without daring to attempt to dispute any of these descriptions, I may say that the bird is a decided character and possesses the charm