Bird of Day 69: Lesser Cuckoo

Cuculus poliocephalus


French: Petit Coucou
German: Gackelkuckuck
Spanish: Cuco Chico
Other common names: Small/Little Cuckoo
(103)

The Lesser Cuckoo occurs in North Afghanistan, North Pakistan and Kashmir E through Himalayan foothills to Khasi and Naga Hills, Bangladesh and N Myanmar, and across China to Ussuriland, Korea and Japan. This cuckoo winters in peninsular India, Sri Lanka and East Africa.(103)

This bird has a slender body, long tail and strong legs. It feeds on insects and fruit. It is a vocal bird, with persistent and loud calls (104).
Click here for the Lesser Cuckoo's call: http://www.xeno-canto.org/XCspeciesprofiles.php?species_nr2=5803.00 A lovely bit of footage of a perched Lesser Cuckoo is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOB-g2Btczw

Cuculus poliocephalus is a brood parasite, that is, they lay a single egg in the nests of various passerine* hosts. The female cuckoo in each case replaces one of the host’s eggs with one of her own. The cuckoo egg hatches earlier than the host’s, and the chick grows faster; in most cases the cuckoo chick evicts the eggs or young of the host species. Cuculus species lay coloured eggs to match those of their passerine hosts. Female cuckoos specialise in a particular host species (generally the species that raised them) and lay eggs that closely resemble the eggs of that host.
(104)

* a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species. (105)