When it comes to the plaintive cuckoo (តាវ៉ៅស្រុក), people always hear and remember what they sound like. What do they look like? We don’t really know, and that is why I want to write about them. Plaintive cuckoos are very close to the Asian koel, so they share many similarities. Let’s find out more about these elusive birds below.
Appearance
Plaintive cuckoos are small birds that grow from 21 to 24 centimeters, making them the smallest birds in the family. Adult male plaintive cuckoos have gray-brown upperparts and orange underparts with a gray head, throat, and upper breast. Their tail feathers have white tips, and they have yellow legs and feet. Adult females have reddish-brown upperparts with dark bars, and their underparts are paler with fainter barring. They also have a pale stripe over each eye, and their tails have dark bars along the whole length.
Behavior
A plaintive cuckoo is both elusive and solitary, and seeing one is quite rare because they like to stay undercover. This bird species only comes together during the breeding season. When they need to communicate, they can produce several calls but not loud or noisy. The thing is that this bird is a brood parasite so it lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. Some of those bird species are the cisticolas, prinias, and tailorbirds whose eggs are similar to theirs but larger.
This is why those bird species mob plaintive cuckoos because they don’t want them to sneak laying eggs in their nests. When they see a plaintive cuckoo, those birds will raise the alarm and mob the cuckoo. And when that happens, the cuckoo will flee before finding an opportunity to come back again.
Feeding & Habitats
This little bird feeds on invertebrates that are beetles, bugs, caterpillars, insects, termites, and many other soft-body species. As an active and restless forager, a plaintive cuckoo appears in the foliage canopy to look for prey. On some occasions, plaintive cuckoos also eat some fruits as well.
Plaintive cuckoos are native to Asia from China and India to Nepal and some parts of Southeast Asia. Across their range, they inhabit various areas such as farmlands, forest edges, gardens, grasslands, open woodlands, parks, and scrubs. Some other common habitats include brushes, cultivated areas, freshwater and peat swamp forests, lowland forests, mangroves, plantations, and swamps.
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