The Confusing Coucal

Pics : 1 - 4 = Greater Coucal ; Jawai | Pics : 5 - 8 = Lesser Coucal ; Manas National Park | Pics : 9 - 12 = Andaman Coucal ; Sri Vijayapuram

It’s a Crow; It’s a Pheasant; It’s a Cuckoo, No, It’s a Coucal. Wait ! Lesser Coucal. Pretty confusing ! Yep !

The confusion started with people in British India, namely the new recruits in the East India Company who saw a bird, thought it was a Pheasant, shot it, ate it, found it to be rather foul tasting and named it “Griff’s Pheasant”. Guess that wouldn’t do so it was then called “Crow Pheasant”, based on its appearance and behavior and that actually matches it some in my opinion because they do look and behave like colorful crows. However, despite these similarities, turns out that these guys have more in common with Cuckoos and are now, rather large members of that family. If that ended the confusion that’d be that but then, Cuckoos are famous for being brood parasites that lay their eggs in other birds’ nests (Ref : Brood Parasite). Now, these guys don’t do that but display all the other aspects of the Cuculidae family. Well, I guess Man had to fit the poor bird somewhere and as far as the Coucal is concerned, I doubt he cares a rats ass about how he’s classified or what all he has in common with a Koel or Roadrunner. As far as the locals are concerned, we’d been calling the bird Bhardwaj forever and I doubt much changed for us until we started learning English classifications. It’s my honest opinion that so many of the idiocies of naming and classification of creatures would have gone a lot easier if we’d just gone with local names for new animals that we ran into, just spelled in a different language. Like they did with names of places. So if you saw it first in Africa, use an African name as the starting point and be done with it instead of trying to get your surname into it along with special comments all in a name, like in the case of so many birds' names. It would have also helped greatly to have the whole picture before rushing to paint it to get your name in print. You’d know where what goes and fits.

Well, Coucals come in Greater ( Pics : 1 - 4 ) and Lesser ( Pics : 5 - 8 ) forms, meaning bigger and smaller and there are colour variations in the sub species like the Andaman Coucal (Pics : 6 – 9 ). Most Coucal species have a characteristic long and straight hind claw which obviously comes with it’s advantages in grasping and holding on to stuff be it perches or prey. Some Coucals have striking red eyes which give them a scary look for me at least. They're ground dwelling birds and weak fliers so they pretty much hang around the ground or some lower perches. Their nests are seldom above 6 meters high in the bush and they’re monogamous once paired. Oh ! and they’re chivalrous. Get this, during courtship; the male Coucal will bring the female little food gifts like a dead bug or something and the female, in turn will droop her wings and lower her tail like in a little bow to show her acceptance. How cute is that? It’s even cuter imagining these mean looking birds doing that. It’d be a real pleasure to see that first hand for sure.

India has superstitions and lore about many birds and animals and in the case of the Bhardwaj, it’s distinct call has been associated to omens across various indigenous cultures giving it a place in lore, superstitions and stories. Some people still believe that seeing these guys is good luck and in fact there’s a very convincing Quora post Im looking at right now that’s trying to tell me how the Coucal is the voice of nature telling you stuff. Good stuff. Well, that’s what I think he’s trying to say but then with these guys you never know. I can’t tell how their heads are wired. In the past, Indian people ate these poor “Griff’s Pheasants”, enduring that foul taste cause its flesh was supposed to be the cure for tuberculosis and I guess good medicine always does taste bad or vice versa.

The first Coucals I saw were a couple that was strutting about the ground while we waited for Neelam the Leopardess in Jawai in 2024. She wasn’t doing much at all up on her cave’s entrance on the hill and these guys were hunting. Well, more action close to me so I caught it and that’s how I met these beauties ( Pics : 1 – 4 ). It was actually super fun watching one of them just grab that insect out of the air while it flew past like it was nothing. Pretty impressive and the bird was just out strolling. My next run in was with the Andaman Coucal a few months later ( Pics : 9 – 12 ). The first was the dramatic one who slowly emerged out the bush to walk around looking for prey early one morning in South Andaman. I caught another one of those guys crossing the road the next day but most of those pictures were from the back and I think I just posted one of that guy here. The Lesser Coucal was a recent find for me ( Pics : 5 - 8 ). They’re all over both Bansbari and Bhuyanpara in Manas National Park in April. They’re in the bush and in the grass as well. What sets them apart from the other two kinds easily is the size and they absence of the red eyes.

The Coucal isn’t confusing at all if we take away our attempts to fit it somewhere where it doesn’t. I mean we’re still calling it “a kind of Cuckoo” when it doesn’t do what Cuckoos do. Like I said at the start, the subject doesn’t care and well, there’s never anything wrong with being a misfit in the long run. Is there?