CUCKOO 6/14 - Large Hawk Cuckoo

 Large Hawk Cuckoo

Still hunting for my elusive Speckled Piculet last weekend in the month Oct 2011. Instead got 2 lifers. One of them is this large bird of 15 inches or 40cm at the Telekom loop left of the junction.

Large Hawk Cuckoo is found in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The resident subspecies of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo is sometimes considered a separate species, the Dark Hawk-cuckoo (C. s. bocki ). It feeds on insects, mainly caterpillars, spiders, birds eggs and berries. In Peninsula they can be seen at highland tropical forests at altitude upto 2,500m like Fraser's Hill. LHC can also be seen in Awana side but may be the migrant ones.

It has a greyish-brown back, a grey head and a tail with broad bars. The throat is white and the breast is rufous and both have dark streaks. The belly has broad black bands on white. The eyering is yellow and the iris is orange to buff in colour.

It is a brood parasite and its hosts tend to be Laughingthrush, Barwings and similar. Its scientific specific name sparverioides means "resembling a Sparrowhawk" and, in flight, it looks just like a Sparrowhawk. It is possible that this may cause potential hosts to flee allowing the Large Hawk-cuckoo to lay its eggs.