Asian Emerald Cuckoo

The Asian emerald cuckoo grows to about 18cm. The adult male has an iridescent dark green head, upperparts and upper breast, a white lower breast and a green-barred belly, with orange bare skin round the eye and an orange-yellow, black-tipped beak. The adult female has coppery-green upperparts, a rusty brown crown and nape and green-barred underparts. Both sexes show a white band on the underwing in flight (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is a brood parasite, laying its eggs in the nests of other birds such as the crimson sunbird and the little spiderhunter. Its breeding range extends from the Himalayas east to Myanmar, China and northern Thailand, and further south it is a vagrant or migrant. It mainly forages in the upper canopy for insects and other small invertebrates, including ants, caterpillars and bugs.