Asian Koel

The Asian koel is a large, long-tailed cuckoo, 39–46cm long and 190–327g. The male of the nominate race is glossy bluish-black with a pale greenish-grey bill and a crimson eye. The female is brown on the crown with rufous streaks on the head, dark brown upperparts spotted with white and buff, and heavily barred whitish underparts. Young birds look more like the male and have a black bill. The male's familiar song is a rising, repeated koo-Ooo, and the female gives a shrill kik-kik-kik (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is a brood parasite that lays a single egg in the nests of crows and other hosts, which raise the chick, and unusually among cuckoos the adults eat mainly fruit. It lives in light woodland and cultivation and is a strong coloniser of new areas: it was among the first birds to reach the volcanic island of Krakatau. The koel features widely in Indian, Pakistani and Nepali poetry. In India it is resident across a very large range; SoIB 2023 estimates a long-term increase of about 75% and rates it a Low conservation priority (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).