Himalayan Cuckoo

The Himalayan cuckoo, formerly the Oriental cuckoo, is a brood-parasitic cuckoo about 30–35 cm long and 70–140 g. Adult males are dark ashy grey above with a brown, almost black, white-spotted and tipped tail. The area from the chin to the breast is ash-grey, the lower breast and abdomen white with black bars, and the vent white to milky orange, and the legs and feet yellow to orange with a yellow eye ring. Its call is a high note followed by three lower flat notes, like a muffled hoopoe (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds from the Himalaya eastward to southern China and Taiwan, usually above the tree line at 1,500–3,300 m in Kashmir, Myanmar and Nepal, and migrates to Southeast Asia and the Greater Sunda Islands for the winter. Breeding runs from late April to August in Kashmir and March to September around Nepal. SoIB 2023 rates it a Low conservation priority, a summer migrant of forest with a Moderate range and an inconclusive long-term trend of about −28% (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).