Indian Cuckooshrike

The Indian cuckooshrike is a large, grey cuckooshrike. Adult males have a broad, well-marked dark eye stripe, a grey throat and breast and finely barred belly and flanks, with a prominent whitish vent. Females have a paler eye stripe and barring that also covers the throat and breast and extends further down. It was formerly combined with several South-east Asian forms under the name large cuckooshrike (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is mostly insectivorous but also eats figs and forest fruits. Small groups fly with a bounding flight just above the canopy, calling a loud klu-eep, and on landing it characteristically flicks its closed wings one after the other, a movement also used in courtship. It breeds in the dry winter months, building a shallow saucer of twigs and grass decorated with cobwebs in the fork of a horizontal branch, and usually lays two or three eggs. In India it is resident across a very large range; SoIB 2023 estimates a long-term decline of about 62% and rates it a Moderate conservation priority (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).