Cuco del Himalaya

Identificación

Adult male Himalayan cuckoos are dark ashy-grey above with a brown, almost black, tail that is whitely spotted and tipped. Legs and feet range between yellow and orange. The area from their chins to the breast is ash-grey, with their lower breast and abdomen being white with black bars, and a white to milky orange vent with varying bars. The eye-ring is yellow with yellow to brown irises—darker orange has been seen in males. Bills are black with an orange-yellow or green-yellow base. Their size approximately 30–35 cm and 70–140 g.<p>Females are almost the same, but with rufous tinge to breast, and sometimes the rump and upper tail-coverts rufous with dark bars. Seen with dark-barred rufous upperparts, head, tail and wings, former with white tips. The sides of the head to breast are off-white with dark bars. The rest of underparts are white with black barring.<p>Juveniles have brown irises and are slate grey above with white edges, barred white and black below, and have a black throat with white bars. There are two plumage morphs in both sexes of which are grey and hepatic, their irises changing to a creamy grey to blackish brown color, with a dully-colored bill.<p>Males are notably recorded more during dawn and dusk from high lookouts or in flight. Their call includes a high note followed by three lower flat notes, similar to “hoop, hoop-hoop” or “tun-tadun”, much like that of a Common Hoopoe (Upupa epops) but lower-pitched and more muffled. The males also produce hoarse croaking sounds and chuckles, even a harsh “gaak-gaak-gak-ak-ak-ak” at times.<p>The females’ call contains a bubbling “quick-quick-quick”.

Taxonomía

With new information from a recent mtDNA study, it appears that the Himalayan cuckoo is most closely related to Cuculus canorus, creating a sister-clade with the two other species: C.gularis and C.rochii. The species C.optatus, previously named horsfieldi for Palearctic populations but was proven unsuitable, is considered a separate species because their songs were determined distinct enough. However, there is still some debate implying the differences are within range of variation from saturatus. It was only until recently that C.saturatus was considered one and the same with C.lepidus, but are now recognized as two separate species.<p>The Himalayan cuckoo is essentially identical to the Oriental cuckoo (C.optatus) and is also often paired with the Common cuckoo (C.canorus), but has wings with much broader and widely spaced black bars. The Common cuckoo has brown and white bars below the bend of the wings with a plain rufous, whereas the Himalayan is unbarred at the bend with a rufous morph of dark bars and undertail coverts. Both species have distinctly different calls.

Nombre científico

Cuculus saturatus

Autoridad

Blyth, 1843

Orden

Cuculiformes

Familia

Cucúlidos

Género

Cuculus

Distribución y hábitat

The Himalayan cuckoo can be found throughout northeast Pakistan, the northern Indian subcontinent to southern China in warm weather, spotted along Thailand, Taiwan, Nepal, Assam, Kashmir, and Burma. In the winters, it ranges from southeast Asia to northern Australia, including Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and New Guinea in the months of October to May. With C.optatus looking nearly identical to saturatus and having it's winter range overlapping much of the same regions, this is another reason why the two species are often misidentified with each other.<p>When it is breeding season, the cuckoo favors the Oriental Region and the Himalayas through southeast Asia to east China and Taiwan and is rarely found above 1000m. The best breeding areas for C.saturatus in the summer is from late April to August in the Kashmir region and March through September surrounding Nepal. During the non-breeding season, it will be seen in southeast Asia, the Greater Sundas and the Philippines.<p>The species usually inhabits mixed coniferous and deciduous forests, thickets, birches and mountain forests or steppes with bushes and other wooded areas and orchards during the spring and summer seasons. Usually occurring above tree-lines of 1500m to 3300m in Kashmir, Myanmar and Nepal, and even up to 4500m in southwest China.  For the colder seasons, it lives in primary and secondary tropical forests, savannas, gardens and teak on plantations, monsoon rainforests. More occasionally over the more recent years, it is found in swamps, mangroves and plantations of Australia and general low elevation habitats of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo at 1200 to 2000m.

Área de cría

OR : Himalayas through se Asia to e China and Taiwan

Área no reproductiva

se Asia, Greater Sundas and Philippines

Migración

Migrantes completos

Comportamiento

Patrón migratorio: Migrantes completos.

Conservación

Tendencia poblacional: en declive.

Tendencia poblacional

en declive