Common Hawk-Cuckoo

How to identify

Field marks

1. Eye-ring yellow
2. Upperparts gray
3. Underparts whitish, with brown barring
4. Tail with broad barring

Male, female and young

Sexes similar in plumage, but the male is often larger; immatures have streaks on the breast and large brown V-shaped markings on the belly.

Voice

In summer the male repeatedly gives three loud notes, the second longer and higher; the calls gradually build in intensity, then stop abruptly.

Where and when it's recorded

Common Hawk-Cuckoo has been recorded at 314 of the 8,171 birding hotspots we track, in 7 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. Kanha NP – Mukki ZoneIndia4,559 records
2. Kanha Tiger Reserve – Mukki GateIndia1,649 records
3. Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural HistoryIndia1,237 records

Countries and regions with the most records

IndiaNepalBangladeshSri LankaPakistanBhutanMyanmar (Burma)

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The common hawk-cuckoo (Hierococcyx varius), popularly known as the brainfever bird, is a medium-sized cuckoo resident in the Indian subcontinent. It bears a close resemblance to the shikra, even in its style of flying and landing on a perch. The resemblance to hawks gives this group the generic name of hawk-cuckoo; like many other cuckoos, these are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of babblers.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

Questions