Plaintive Cuckoo

The plaintive cuckoo is a fairly small cuckoo, 21–24 cm long, native to Asia from India, Nepal and China to Indonesia. The adult male is grey-brown above and orange below with a grey head, throat and upper breast, white-tipped tail feathers, yellow legs and feet, a red eye and a bill that is black above and yellow below. One form is reddish brown above with dark bars (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is a brood parasite, laying eggs in the nests of cisticolas, prinias and tailorbirds that resemble the hosts' eggs but are larger. The male has several plaintive whistling calls. It feeds on invertebrates, is normally solitary and often difficult to see, and small birds often mob it to drive it away from their nests. SoIB 2023 rates it a Low conservation priority, a resident and local migrant of forest and plantation with a Moderate range of about 212,000 km² and insufficient data on trends (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).