Oriental Cuckoo

Cuculus saturatusOrder: CUCULIFORMES Family: Cuckoos and Roadrunners (Cuculidae)

Codes: Common Name: ORCU Scientific Name: CUCOPT ITIS Taxonomic No.: 177823

Oriental Cuckoo Breeding Male Small Portrait

Birdman Mel's Backyard Tips

Overview

Oriental Cuckoo: Medium-sized cuckoo with gray upperparts, gray throat, and distinctly barred breast. Wings and long tail are dark gray. Bill is decurved and yellow with dark tip. Feeds on caterpillars, insects and their larvae. Flies low to the ground, holds wings low during flight.

Range and Habitat

Oriental Cuckoo: Native of Eurasia, but makes rare visits to the Pribilofs and western Aleutians. Usually found in forests.

Topo Map: Perching-like Body

Voice Text

"do-do-do-do"

Interesting Facts

The Oriental Cuckoo is also known as Horsfield's Cuckoo.

It was formerly classified as a subspecies of the Himalayan Cuckoo but differences in voice and size suggest that it should be treated as a separate species.

The exact extent of its wintering range is uncertain due to its secretive habits and the difficulty of separating it from the Himalayan Cuckoo and other similar species.

A group of cuckoos are collectively known as a "cooch" and an "asylum" of cuckoos.

Bird Term Glossary

Author

Gary Owen Dick

Artist

Samira Belous

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Bird Call Credits: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Martyn Stewart, http://www.naturesound.org, Redmond, Washington USA. The reuse or copying of bird calls in this database is strictly forbidden.

Oriental Cuckoo

● Song: "do-do-do-do"

● Foraging & Feeding: Oriental Cuckoo: Eats insects, including fuzzy caterpillars; forages on the ground or in flight.

● Breeding & nesting: Oriental Cuckoo: Eighteen to twenty-five white eggs with dark red, gray, brown, or purple spots are laid each season, singly placed in nests of host species. Eggs are incubated for 12 days by the host.

● Similar species: Oriental Cuckoo: Common Cuckoo has paler gray upperparts, paler gray underparts, and lacks buff undertail coverts.

Flight Pattern

While flying, keeps wings low, not raising them above the horizontal plane, with deep downstroke ending well below body.

Oriental Cuckoo Breeding Male Body Illustration

● Range & Habitat: Oriental Cuckoo: Native of Eurasia, but makes rare visits to the Pribilofs and western Aleutians. Usually found in forests.

^BreedingPromiscuous, Brood parasite

^PopulationAccidental to casual

^MigrationMigratory

^Weight4.1 Ounces

Perching-like Body

Upperparts

Back, rump, hindneck, wings, and crown.

Breast

The upper front part of a bird.

4 and 6 letter alpha codes

The four letter common name alpha code is is derived from the first two letters of the common first name and the first two letters of common last name. The six letter species name alpha code is derived from the first three letters of the scientific name (genus) and the first three letters of the scientific name (species). See (1) below for the rules used to create the codes..

Four-letter (for English common names) and six-letter (for scientific names) species alpha codes were developed by Pyle and DeSante (2003, North American Bird-Bander 28:64-79) to reflect A.O.U. taxonomy and nomenclature (A.O.U. 1998) as modified by Supplements 42 (Auk 117:847-858, 2000) and 43 (Auk 119:897-906, 2002). The list has been updated by Pyle and DeSante to reflect changes reported by the A.O.U from 2003 through 2006.

Field Guide to Birds of North America

Oriental Cuckoo

Related Birds

Birdman Mel's Backyard Tips

Overview

Range and Habitat

Topo Map: Perching-like Body

Voice Text

Interesting Facts

Bird Term Glossary

Author

Artist

Oriental Cuckoo

Flight Pattern