Greater Coucal
Centropus sinensis
This is a large species of cuckoo at 48 cm. The head is black, upper mantle and underside are black glossed with purple. The back and wings are chestnut brown. There are no pale shaft streaks on the coverts. The eyes are ruby red. Juveniles are duller black with spots on the crown and there are whitish bars on the underside and tail. There are several geographic races and some of these populations are sometimes treated as full species. Earlier treatments included the brown coucal (C. (s.) andamanensis) under this name.
ID text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
Lesser Coucal
Centropus bengalensis
This slightly smaller-sized and shorter-billed coucal has a very long hind claw, the longest within the genus. The overall plumage, as in many other coucals, is of a blackish bird with a long tail and rufous wings. They have two plumages, a breeding plumage in which the head and upper back are glossy with dark shafts to the feather and a duller non-breeding plumage in which the feather shafts on the head and back are whitish. The wing coverts also have pale shafts showing as whitish streaks on the brown feathers. The central upper tail coverts are barred and very long.
ID text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
Where you might meet both
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Play today's Daily BirdPhotos and recordings are credited to their authors under the licence shown. Full profiles: Greater Coucal and Lesser Coucal.