Citations:koha

English citations of koha

1. (chiefly Sri Lanka) The koel (Eudynamys), a genus of cuckoos from Asia, Australia, and the Pacific with a distinctive loud call; specifically, the Asian koel (Eudynamys scolopaceus).
   • 1997, Daya De Silva, Fading Traditions: Memories of Rural Sri Lanka, page 122:

     The vehi lihiniya (the rain bird) brought news of rain and the koha, the plaintive cuckoo, brought us news of the coming of the New Year in April.

   • 1997, Gamini de S. G. Punchihewa, Vignettes of Far Off Things: Introducing the History, Tank Civilization, Jungle Lore, Fauna, & Flora and Adventure of the Walawe Basin, Nugegoda, Colombo, Sri Lanka: State Printing Corporation, →ISBN, page 199:

     Our species, the Koel or Koha also belongs to this sub-family of Cuculinae. The male cuckoo is dark in colour, while its female is speckled (called the Gomara Koha).

   • 1999, Lalitha K Witanachchi, Customs and Rituals of Sinhala Buddhists, page 43:

     The cuckoo known as the Koha begins his rather noisy melody early morning to herald the New Year.

   • 2003, S. Pathiravitana, Through my Asian eyes, page 244:

     For that matter, every little man (and even the big ones) has at sometime in his boyhood teased a koha by repeating his name after him and induced the bird to sing louder.

   • 2006, Swarna Wickremeratne, “Festival of New Beginnings: The New Year”, in Buddha in Sri Lanka: Remembered Yesterdays, Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, →ISBN, pages 31–32:

     The sound of the koha is associated with the advent of the Sinhala and Tamil new year; the bird is often called the Avurudu koha—the New Year Cuckoo. The koha is an early bird, and its call is strident, plaintive, and easy to imitate. The legend has it that the koha never makes a nest of its own. It takes a free ride by laying its eggs in the crow's nest.

   • 2007, Siri Ranawake, Time & Chance, page 219:

     She remembers with a twinge of pain the cry of the tropical cuckoo, the koha, in the large mango tree in her mother's garden heralding the dawn of the New Year.

   • 2007, Godwin Witane, A few pages from the life and times of Godwin Witane: a mosaic of thoughts & tales spanning the history of Ceylon, Volume 1:

     […] the size of a Koha seated on the tip of a dead branch of the tree, silhouetted against the sky.

2. [Bird from New Zealand. Supposedly Donum novaeseelandiae based on the work quoted below; probably fictional.]
   • 1999, Emily Perkins, The Picnic Virgin: New Writers, page 57:

     The koha bird, last sighted in 1953 at a popular picnic spot on Stewart Island, was discovered in a local aviary.