CUCKOOS OF EASTERN HIMALAYAS

1.REDWINGED CRESTED CUCKOO: SIZE: House Crow; slender. Length 50 cm (20 inch) FIELD CHARACTERS: Above, glossy metallic black with crested head and white half-collar on hind-neck. Wings chestnut as in crow- pheasant. Below: throat and breast rusty; rest whitish. Sexes alike. When flying away from observer, black crest and upper plumage interrupted by white hind collar, red wings, and whitish under-parts, diagnostic.

STATUS, HABITAT, ETC. Resident and partial migrant. Duars and foothills upto 1500 m. Evergreen and moist-deciduous biotopes, in secondary forest and scrub-and-bush jungle. Solos. Chiefly arboreal, occasionally descending to low bushes for food. Very silent except in breeding season. Flight swift and direct, with quick wing beats like Koel. Broad parasitic chiefly on laughing thrushes. FOOD: mostly caterpillars. CALL: harsh grating screams resembling a jay's; also a whistling double note like Pigme Owlet's.

2.LARGE HAWK-CUCKOO: SIZE: House Crow-; slimmer. Length 40cm(16 inches). FIELD CHARACTERS: Appearance at rest and in flight strikingly hawk-like. ABOVE: ashy grey and ashy brown. Tail greet brown, banded with blackish and tipped white or rufous white. BELOW: throat white, streaked with ashy and rufous, passing into more rufous upper breast. Rest of under-parts rufous-tinged white, cross-barred with brown. SEX: both sexes are alike. Reliably identified only by the distinctive call.

STATUS, HABITAT, ETC. Resident; breeds between 900 and 2700m-wooded hillsides and valleys. Migrates to peninsular India in winter. Arboreal; keeps singly to foliage canopy and difficult to see unless it flies. FLIGHT: swift, direct, deceptively shikra-like-a few rapid wing beats followed by a guide. Hawk-like habit of sweeping upward into branch for alighting adds to the deception. Obstreperously vocal in breeding season (summer). Brood-parasitic chiefly on laughing thrushes.

FOOD: caterpillars, beetles and other insects. CALL: a loud, shrill, screaming crescendo whistle pipeeah, in runs of 3 to 6; repeated with monotonous persistency all day and during night.

3.HAWK-CUCKOO (Brainfever Bird) SIZE: pigeon; slender, with proportionately longer tail. Length 35 cm (14 inches). FEILD CHARACTERS: A shikra-like cuckoo, in general very similar to Large Hawk-Cuckoo. ABOVE: ashy Grey. Tail tipped rufescent with 4 to 5 whitish and black bands, the terminal one broadest. BELOW: white, tinged with rufous and ashy on breast with brown on belly and flanks. SEXES: both sexes are alike.

STATUS AND HABITAT, ETC. Same as Large Hawk-Cuckoo, but inhabits a lower altitudinal zone-normally below 1000m. Affects deciduous and semi-evergreen biotope-secondary forest, groves near habitations and cultivation, etc.

FLIGHT: flight and movements likewise deceptively shikra-like. Silent in winter thus to be overlooked; very noisy in breeding season (summer). Brood-parasitic mainly on jungle babblers and laughing thrushes.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic