Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS

THE CUCKOOS

Coucals

The second subfamily {Centropodina) embraces only a single genus (Cenlropus) and about forty species of large or medium-sized, ground-haunting Cuckoos, known as Coucals, the most marked peculiarity of which is an extremely long, nearly straight hind claw.

They are of wide range, extending throughout the Ethiopian and Oriental regions as well as Papua and Australia, and have short, rounded wings, long, graduated tails, and the head, neck, and breast clothed with harsh spinous feathers. The common Coucal, or Crow-Pheasant (C. sinensis), is a large bird over twenty inches long, with the whole plumage, except the wings, black throughout, these together with their coverts being chestnut. Practically all its time is spent on the ground, in cultivated areas, waste land and bushy jungle, or sometimes the forests, where it seeks its sustenance of insects and probably lizards, small snakes, etc., a constant habit being the elevation of its large tail over the back.

The nesting season extends from June to August, and according to Hume, Blanford, and others, it makes a”huge globular nest of twigs, green and dry leaves, and coarse grass, generally, but not invariably, with a lateral entrance, and placed in a thick and often thorny bush or tree. The eggs are broad, regular ovals, white and covered with a chalky layer; they are usually three in number.”Its flesh is by many considered a great delicacy.

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