Jacobin Cuckoo

ID tip

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

When to see the Jacobin Cuckoo

One bar for each month. Filled bars are the 10 months with records; pale bars are months with none. The wide bar is November, the month with the most records.

Where to see the Jacobin Cuckoo

The map shades 47 countries with regular records, and 4 more in a lighter tone where the bird turns up only as a stray. Everything unshaded has no records. Countries are listed below the map.

Recorded as a rare visitor in Taiwan, Central African Republic, Yemen, Burundi.

About the Jacobin Cuckoo

The Jacobin cuckoo, also pied cuckoo or pied crested cuckoo, is a member of the cuckoo order of birds that is found in Africa and Asia. It is partially migratory and in India, it has been considered a harbinger of the monsoon rains due to the timing of its arrival. It has been associated with a bird in Indian mythology and poetry, known as the chātaka represented as a bird with a beak on its head that waits for rains to quench its thirst.

Text adapted from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Easily confused with

Great Spotted CuckooClamator glandariusThis species is slightly larger than the common cuckoo at 35–39 cm (14–15 in) in length, but looks much larger with its broad wings and long narrow tail. Levaillant's CuckooClamator levaillantiiThe cuckoo is 37.5 cm (15 in) long, longer tailed than pied cuckoo, and with a more heavily streaked throat. Chestnut-winged CuckooClamator coromandusThis dark and crested cuckoo has chestnut wings, a glossy black crest and a graduated tail (the feathers shortening in steps from the center outwards) whose terminal edges are white and inconspicuous unlike the white tips of the Jacobin cuckoo which is found in parts of its range.

Side by side: Great Spotted Cuckoo vs Jacobin Cuckoo · Jacobin Cuckoo vs Levaillant's Cuckoo · Chestnut-winged Cuckoo vs Jacobin Cuckoo