| Common Name : | Common hawk-cuckoo, Brainfever bird. |
| Binomial Name : | Hierococcyx varius |
| Family : | Cuculidae |
| Bengali Name : | Chokh gelo pakhi ( |
| Photo Taken : | Bangladesh |
Common hawk-cuckoo is our today's bird. The call of this bird is one my favorites. It has a nice crescendo in their calls. In Bengali we call the bird as Chokh gelo pakhi (
Common hawk-cuckoo (Hierococcyx varius) is a medium sized bid. Both male and female birds are similar but males are slightly larger. Upper side of the bird is ashy-grey or brownish-grey in color. Front side is dull-white with brownish spots (or streaked). Birds are having a prominent yellow ring around the eyes. Insects are their main diet. They are a specialist to eat the caterpillars. Caterpillar contains toxin, but before eating, the Common hawk-cuckoo uses to press and rub the caterpillar on the branch to remove the gut (that contains toxin).
Common hawk-cuckoo (Hierococcyx varius) has a resemblances with the hawk birds. Also the flight, perching, and gliding style of the bird can be mistaken with the Sparrowhawks. For these reasons other small birds use to get scared (for a while) with the presence of this hawk-cuckoo bird.
This bird prefers to live on trees and rarely comes to ground. That's why it is very difficult to locate the bird. But its call helps to find it easily for the birdwatchers. In Bengali the call is something like dee dee, dee dee, dee dee, dee dee and then chokh gelo megh gelo (means eyes are gone).
Similar to other cuckoo bird this one is also a parasite bird. The female prefers to lay one single egg on each nests of the host. They mainly target the babbler birds (i.e. Jungle babbler).
Photos of Common hawk-cuckoo (Hierococcyx varius) were taken from the following places of Bangladesh:
1. January 2015: Keraniganj, Dhaka.
2. January 2015: Bagerhat.
This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog http://icbird.blogspot.com/
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