Common Hawk-cuckoo
Encyclopedia
The Common Hawk-Cuckoo (Hierococcyx varius), popularly known as the Brainfever bird, is a medium sized cuckoo
resident in South Asia
. It bears a close resemblance to the Shikra
, a sparrow hawk, even in its style of flying and landing on a perch. The resemblance to hawks gives this group the generic name of hawk-cuckoo and like many other cuckoos these are brood parasite
s, laying their eggs in nests of babbler
s. During their breeding season in summer males produce loud, repetitive three note calls that are well-rendered as brain-fever, the second note being longer and higher pitched. These notes rise to a crescendo before ending abruptly and repeat after a few minutes, the calling may go on through the day, well after dusk and before dawn.
is ashy grey above; whitish below, cross-barred with brown. The tail is broadly barred. The sexes are alike. They have a distinctive yellow eye ring. Subadults have the breast streaked, similar to the immature Shikra, and there are large brown chevron marks on the belly. At first glance they can be mistaken for a hawk. When flying they use a flap and glide style that resembles that of sparrowhawk
s (especially the Shikra
) and flying upwards and landing on a perch they shake their tails from side to side. Many small and birds and squirrels raise alarm just as they would in the presence of a hawk. The sexes are alike but males tend to be larger.
They can be confused with the Large Hawk-Cuckoo
, which however has dark streaks on the throat and breast. Young birds have a pale chin but young Large Hawk-Cuckoos have a black chin.
During summer months, before the monsoon
s, the males are easily detected by their repeated calls but can be difficult to spot. The call is a loud screaming three-note call, repeated 5 or 6 times, rising in crescendo and ending abruptly. It is heard throughout the day and frequently during moonlit nights. The calls of females are a series if grating notes. Common Hawk-Cuckoos feed mainly on insects and are specialised feeders that can handle hairy caterpillar
s. Caterpillar guts often contain toxins and like many cuckoos they remove the guts by pressing the caterpillar and rubbing it on a branch before swallowing it. The hairs are swallowed with the caterpillar and are separated in the stomach and regurgitated as a pellet.
in Tamil Nadu, once a Danish settlement and from where a specimen reached Martin Hendriksen Vahl who described the species in 1797 This species is placed under the genus Hierococcyx, which includes other hawk-cuckoos, but is sometimes included in the genus Cuculus.
There are two subspecies, the nominate from India and ciceliae of the hill regions of Sri Lanka. The Indian population has paler plumage than ciceliae.
in the west to most of the India
n peninsula from about 800m in the Himalayas
foothills, east to Bangladesh
and south into Sri Lanka
. Some birds of the Indian population winter in Sri Lanka. In the hills of central Sri Lanka, ciceliae is a resident. It is generally resident but where occurring at high altitudes and in arid areas is locally migratory
. It is found in the lower elevations (mostly below 1000m) of the Himalayas but in the higher areas, the Large Hawk-Cuckoo
tends to be more common.
The species is arboreal and rarely descends to the ground. Its habitat includes garden land, groves of tree, deciduous and semi-evergreen forests.
Like many other cuckoos, this species is a brood parasite
, preferring babbler
s mainly in the genus Turdoides (possibly the only host) and also reportedly on laughing-thrushes of the genus Garrulax.
Its breeding season is March to June, coinciding with that of some of the Turdoides babblers. A single egg is laid in each nest, blue, like that of the host. The hatchling usually evicts the eggs of its host and is reared to maturity by foster parents, following them for nearly a month. T C Jerdon
noted that it may not always evict the host and that young birds may be seen along with young babblers. When moving with a flock of babblers the chick makes a grating kee-kee call to beg for food and the foster parents within the group may feed it. The predominant host species in India are Turdoides striatus and Turdoides affinis. Hawk-cuckoos also parasitise the Large Grey Babbler Turdoides malcolmi. In Sri Lanka, their host is Turdoides striatus.
Parasitic eye-worms in the genus Oxyspirura have been found in the orbital cavity of the species.
(in some old books, this name is also incorrectly used for the Asian Koel
). Frank Finn
noted that [H]is note, however, fully entitles him to his ordinary designation, whether from its "damnable iteration" or from its remarkable resemblance to the word "brain-fever" repeated in a piercing voice running up the scale. Other interpretations of the bird call include peea kahan in Hindi ("where's my love") or chokh gelo (in Bengali
, "my eyes are gone") and paos ala (Marathi
, "the rains are coming").
The call "Pee kahan" or "Papeeha" is more accurately represented by the shrill screaming "pi-peeah" of the Large Hawk-Cuckoo Hierococcyx sparverioides, which replaces the Brainfever Bird along the Himalayas and its foothills.
The Brainfever Bird's call may be heard all through the day, starting early before dawn and frequently during moonlit nights. A novel by the Indian author Allan Sealy
is named after this bird.
Cuckoo
The cuckoos are a family, Cuculidae, of near passerine birds. The order Cuculiformes, in addition to the cuckoos, also includes the turacos . Some zoologists and taxonomists have also included the unique Hoatzin in the Cuculiformes, but its taxonomy remains in dispute...
resident in South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
. It bears a close resemblance to the Shikra
Shikra
The Shikra is a small bird of prey in the family Accipitridae found widely distributed in Asia and Africa where it is also called the Little Banded Goshawk. The African forms may represent a separate species but have usually been considered as subspecies of the Shikra...
, a sparrow hawk, even in its style of flying and landing on a perch. The resemblance to hawks gives this group the generic name of hawk-cuckoo and like many other cuckoos these are brood parasite
Brood parasite
Brood parasites are organisms that use the strategy of brood parasitism, a kind of kleptoparasitism found among birds, fish or insects, involving the manipulation and use of host individuals either of the same or different species to raise the young of the brood-parasite...
s, laying their eggs in nests of babbler
Babbler
Babbler may refer to:* Old World babbler, a large family of mostly Old World passerine birds* Australo-Papuan babbler, passerine birds endemic to Australia-New Guinea* The Babbler, the journal of BirdLife International in Indochina...
s. During their breeding season in summer males produce loud, repetitive three note calls that are well-rendered as brain-fever, the second note being longer and higher pitched. These notes rise to a crescendo before ending abruptly and repeat after a few minutes, the calling may go on through the day, well after dusk and before dawn.
Description
The Common Hawk-Cuckoo is a medium to large sized cuckoo, about the size of a pigeon (ca. 34 cm). The plumagePlumage
Plumage refers both to the layer of feathers that cover a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage vary between species and subspecies and can also vary between different age classes, sexes, and season. Within species there can also be a...
is ashy grey above; whitish below, cross-barred with brown. The tail is broadly barred. The sexes are alike. They have a distinctive yellow eye ring. Subadults have the breast streaked, similar to the immature Shikra, and there are large brown chevron marks on the belly. At first glance they can be mistaken for a hawk. When flying they use a flap and glide style that resembles that of sparrowhawk
Sparrowhawk
The Eurasian Sparrowhawk is a small bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. Adult male Eurasian Sparrowhawks have bluish grey upperparts and orange-barred underparts; females and juveniles are brown above with brown barring below...
s (especially the Shikra
Shikra
The Shikra is a small bird of prey in the family Accipitridae found widely distributed in Asia and Africa where it is also called the Little Banded Goshawk. The African forms may represent a separate species but have usually been considered as subspecies of the Shikra...
) and flying upwards and landing on a perch they shake their tails from side to side. Many small and birds and squirrels raise alarm just as they would in the presence of a hawk. The sexes are alike but males tend to be larger.
They can be confused with the Large Hawk-Cuckoo
Large Hawk-cuckoo
The Large Hawk-Cuckoo is a species of cuckoo in the Cuculidae family.They call in summer and the goes on well after dusk....
, which however has dark streaks on the throat and breast. Young birds have a pale chin but young Large Hawk-Cuckoos have a black chin.
Monsoon
Monsoon is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation, but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with the asymmetric heating of land and sea...
s, the males are easily detected by their repeated calls but can be difficult to spot. The call is a loud screaming three-note call, repeated 5 or 6 times, rising in crescendo and ending abruptly. It is heard throughout the day and frequently during moonlit nights. The calls of females are a series if grating notes. Common Hawk-Cuckoos feed mainly on insects and are specialised feeders that can handle hairy caterpillar
Caterpillar
Caterpillars are the larval form of members of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly herbivorous in food habit, although some species are insectivorous. Caterpillars are voracious feeders and many of them are considered to be pests in agriculture...
s. Caterpillar guts often contain toxins and like many cuckoos they remove the guts by pressing the caterpillar and rubbing it on a branch before swallowing it. The hairs are swallowed with the caterpillar and are separated in the stomach and regurgitated as a pellet.
Taxonomy and systematics
The type locality of the species is TranquebarTranquebar
Tharangambadi is a panchayat town in Nagapattinam district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, 15 km north of Karaikal, near the mouth of a distributary of the Kaveri River. Its name means "place of the singing waves"...
in Tamil Nadu, once a Danish settlement and from where a specimen reached Martin Hendriksen Vahl who described the species in 1797 This species is placed under the genus Hierococcyx, which includes other hawk-cuckoos, but is sometimes included in the genus Cuculus.
There are two subspecies, the nominate from India and ciceliae of the hill regions of Sri Lanka. The Indian population has paler plumage than ciceliae.
Distribution
The Common Hawk-Cuckoo occurs from PakistanPakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
in the west to most of the India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n peninsula from about 800m in the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
foothills, east to Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
and south into Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. Some birds of the Indian population winter in Sri Lanka. In the hills of central Sri Lanka, ciceliae is a resident. It is generally resident but where occurring at high altitudes and in arid areas is locally migratory
Bird migration
Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...
. It is found in the lower elevations (mostly below 1000m) of the Himalayas but in the higher areas, the Large Hawk-Cuckoo
Large Hawk-cuckoo
The Large Hawk-Cuckoo is a species of cuckoo in the Cuculidae family.They call in summer and the goes on well after dusk....
tends to be more common.
The species is arboreal and rarely descends to the ground. Its habitat includes garden land, groves of tree, deciduous and semi-evergreen forests.
Behaviour and ecology
Brood parasite
Brood parasites are organisms that use the strategy of brood parasitism, a kind of kleptoparasitism found among birds, fish or insects, involving the manipulation and use of host individuals either of the same or different species to raise the young of the brood-parasite...
, preferring babbler
Old World babbler
The Old World babblers or timaliids are a large family of mostly Old World passerine birds. They are rather diverse in size and coloration, but are characterised by soft fluffy plumage. These are birds of tropical areas, with the greatest variety in Southeast Asia and the Indian Subcontinent...
s mainly in the genus Turdoides (possibly the only host) and also reportedly on laughing-thrushes of the genus Garrulax.
Its breeding season is March to June, coinciding with that of some of the Turdoides babblers. A single egg is laid in each nest, blue, like that of the host. The hatchling usually evicts the eggs of its host and is reared to maturity by foster parents, following them for nearly a month. T C Jerdon
Thomas C. Jerdon
Thomas Caverhill Jerdon was a British physician, zoologist and botanist. He is best remembered for his pioneering works on the ornithology of India...
noted that it may not always evict the host and that young birds may be seen along with young babblers. When moving with a flock of babblers the chick makes a grating kee-kee call to beg for food and the foster parents within the group may feed it. The predominant host species in India are Turdoides striatus and Turdoides affinis. Hawk-cuckoos also parasitise the Large Grey Babbler Turdoides malcolmi. In Sri Lanka, their host is Turdoides striatus.
Parasitic eye-worms in the genus Oxyspirura have been found in the orbital cavity of the species.
In culture
The call of this bird has been popularly transcribed as brain-fever in EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
(in some old books, this name is also incorrectly used for the Asian Koel
Asian Koel
The Asian Koel is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, the Cuculiformes. It is found in South Asia, China, and Southeast Asia. It forms a superspecies with the closely related Black-billed and Pacific Koels which are sometimes treated as subspecies...
). Frank Finn
Frank Finn
Frank Finn FZS, MBOU was an English ornithologist.Finn was born in Maidstone and educated at Maidstone Grammar School and Brasenose College, Oxford. He went on a collecting expedition to East Africa in 1892, and became First Assistant Superintendent of the Indian Museum, Calcutta in 1894, and...
noted that [H]is note, however, fully entitles him to his ordinary designation, whether from its "damnable iteration" or from its remarkable resemblance to the word "brain-fever" repeated in a piercing voice running up the scale. Other interpretations of the bird call include peea kahan in Hindi ("where's my love") or chokh gelo (in Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
, "my eyes are gone") and paos ala (Marathi
Marathi language
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
, "the rains are coming").
The call "Pee kahan" or "Papeeha" is more accurately represented by the shrill screaming "pi-peeah" of the Large Hawk-Cuckoo Hierococcyx sparverioides, which replaces the Brainfever Bird along the Himalayas and its foothills.
The Brainfever Bird's call may be heard all through the day, starting early before dawn and frequently during moonlit nights. A novel by the Indian author Allan Sealy
Allan Sealy
Irwin Allan Sealy is a writer born in 1951 in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India. His novel The Everest Hotel: A Calendar was shortlisted for the 1998 Booker prize.-Biography:...
is named after this bird.