Hawk Cuckoo

[Anand Madabhushi]

Hawk Cuckoo....this morning. Yesterday I posted an image of this bird seeking ID. This morning I happened to sight the specie again....this time at at eye level.

AV mode; 1/200; f 5.6; ISO 800; 100-400@400; 10% crop on the right. Did not take chances of moving closer.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Lovely composition. Nice perch and eye contact. The green background looks nice. Nicely captured. Thanks for sharing.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Nice image.Fine details.It is a Common Hawk Cuckoo (Hierococcyx varius).Have you listened to its persistent and shrill call - 'brain fever'/ 'pee pee ah' in the morning.

Cuckoos are to be dealt carefully for ID.There are many species. I shall never forget the musical call -'Bou katha kao,Bou katha kao' of the Indian Cuckoo (Cuculus micropterus)around the FRH at Jena Bill in Simlipal T.R in the early morning.Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild


P.S.:I still have a view that the your earlier posting was that of a different bird, same species-'Common Hawk Cuckoo' but an immature one.Just look out.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

I like the eye contact. Slightly more space at the left would have been even better.

When I am waiting for a tiger, I keep my eyes tuned to listen to the call of this bird. Thanks for sharing.

Sabyasachi

[Murugan Anantharaman]

Nice image of the bird. Its unfortunate that we dont get to see cuckoo's in and around mumbai where I live. I havent spotted a cuckoo in its natural surroundings hence cant differentiate if its the same bird. But as Saktipadaji said you could start looking out by documenting their presence around your place. Its quite a bit of fun to observe these birds regularly. Thanks for sharing.

[Anand Madabhushi]

Patraji

Your feedback means a lot to me. This bird perches, I find, are momentary. I have been tracking for three days.

Having taken a position I could not dare move to recompose. I have NOT heard the call of this bird. Next time I will concentrate on this.

Within a few seconds he flew on to a tree with dark green leaves....hopping from a lower branch to upper branch. Pushing the ISO to 1600 with 1/100 and f5.6 at 400mm I grabbed the image posted above. The focusing point was closer to the eye.

I am surprised I did not receive this reply of yours as an email. Some times this is happening.

Fascinated by the metronomic (thanks to wikipedia) call of Coppersmith Barbet, I have been pursuing this bird for over week now. I posted an image today.

Regards

Anand

I like the eye contact. Slightly more space at the left would have been even better.

When I am waiting for a tiger, I keep my eyes tuned to listen to the call of this bird. Thanks for sharing.

Sabyasachi

[Anand Madabhushi]

Another image within few minutes.

[Anand Madabhushi]

Saktida

I sighted this specie/bird on Sunday for a few seconds. And posted the image that very day.

On Monday, I was at the same tree a little earlier than usual and the bird perched on the same branch for a few seconds and shifted to a smaller and eye level plant.

Please see another image of the bird shot on Monday in a bigger tree.

Regards

Anand

P.S.:I still have a view that the your earlier posting was that of a different bird, same species-'Common Hawk Cuckoo' but an immature one.Just look out.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Lovely image.Very difficult to get such an image as it prefers to perch on tall trees.Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild

Anand Bhai,
Both the photographs taken on Monday(16.04.12) are of the same bird.
In the case of the photograph,same species taken on Sunday (15.04.12)one of the features ranking 9th. in order (out of 18 ,a majority of which are only observed by the photographer) in Bird Identification is :
TAILstatic position)
(a)What is the colour (b)What is the shape (c)What is its length especially in relation to the body.

On point (c) It appears to me that the length of the tail is longer vis-a-vis body and on (b) it is yet to take final shape.

Thanks for questioning.

Kind regards,
SaktiWild

[Bhargava Srivari]

I have heard calls of this bird hundreds of times in Indian Jungles, but I am yet to photograph it. You have been lucky to find the bird perched relatively in the open. Because of its call 'brain fever..brain fever', this bird is more popular as the "brainfever bird".

Cheers

[Anand Madabhushi]

Saktida

I sighted the same specie today also. This bird had perched on 15, 16 and 18 mornings on the same tree. Only on 16th it blessed me with an eye level perch by moving on another tree. I had not read your reply by then hence did not carefully look at the tail.

How to distinguish a male and female in this specie!!!!?

Today I had a good time with one Indian Roler moving from one perch to another in a radius of 40-50 meters.

Anand

Lovely image.Very difficult to get such an image as it prefers to perch on tall trees.Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild

Anand Bhai,
Both the photographs taken on Monday(16.04.12) are of the same bird.
In the case of the photograph,same species taken on Sunday (15.04.12)one of the features ranking 9th. in order (out of 18 ,a majority of which are only observed by the photographer) in Bird Identification is :
TAILstatic position)
(a)What is the colour (b)What is the shape (c)What is its length especially in relation to the body.

On point (c) It appears to me that the length of the tail is longer vis-a-vis body and on (b) it is yet to take final shape.

Thanks for questioning.

Kind regards,
SaktiWild