A new hot spot

 This was definitely the hot spot for the locals and the migrants in recent weeks.

Whether adult or juvy, the Black-naped Oriole is a frequent forager here.

One of the most beautiful migrants transited for a couple of days.

And the female came too, many days later.

A place for all, even one of the smallest, the Arctic Warbler.

And of course the star bird, the Asian Emerald Cuckoo was there too, much earlier and gone too soon.

And last but not least, even this one made a last visit to the taman, and I only managed to capture this one image but enough to know who came by!

A 'cuckoo' reckoning

 In view that questions are still raised over the identity of the Himalayan Cuckoo (Cuculus saturatus) vs the Indian Cuckoo (Cuculus micropterus), I've tried to collate the different views given by senior birders todate in favour of the former:

- longer, straighter neck, and longer tail
- absence of wide white bands on under-tail vs dark black band near tail end as present in the latter
- greyish head and upper-part vs greyish head with more contrasting upper-part with brownish tinge including wings and tail in the latter

and from other sources like ebird.org:

- gray above
- dark gray tail
- buffy (not white) under-tail feathers

It is fortunate that the Himalayan Cuckoo has found it quite conducive to spend more than a couple of days here and this has afforded more opportunities for varied profile images:

Straight neck with overall greyish head, upper-part and darker grey tail, absence of wide white bands on under-tail, and buffy under-tail feathers.

And best of all,  there have been occasions for some lovely shots of this cuckoo (though some non-birding contacts have asked what's attractive about this bird?!)

A typical behaviour observed of this cuckoo is that it forages easily and commonly on the ground too.

... and taking flight, providing underwing and belly images.

and what's not adorable about this bird??!!

Manoeuvering, ie literally taking small steps on the branch to turn around instead of hopping... cute

Eye-contact ... always heartwarming moment.

And so far this cuckoo has proven to be rather obliging despite being pursued by photographers round the taman, displaying a dignified command by continuing to forage and ingest its find nonchalantly as and when it sees fit despite the numerous lenses zooming in on it.

This cuckoo sighting will certainly be another avian record for the taman as it's only the second location to date that this cuckoo has been sighted in the country during this migratory season.

When I'm happily wrong

 When what looked like an Indian Cuckoo suddenly flew in, perched above where I was waiting for a sighting, any sighting, I thought this a reward for patience, but it was unfortunately too close for a swift shot.

And then off it fled spooked by the sudden appearance of a swarm of tiny flies.  Watching it descend into trees across the huge pond, I immediately was in pursuit.

But this was only the beginning, of a hunt that lasted more than two hours, with nary a call or flutter, zilch, to lead so it looked like it had completely left the taman.  On the lighter side, I could only take it that I must have been seen to have spent an incredible lengthy time in the taman wandering around when a park worker queried if I didn't need to rest for lunch!

Determined that I would spare one last attempt at finding it before I returned home I headed right across to the other side of the taman, strode right into the shadiest part of the taman, and within seconds, one that resembles the hunted flew into sight, and with pounding heart, I sent off a swift prayer that this could be it, and bingo! notwithstanding that it was merely there to afford me a couple of shots before it fled, this time spooked by the noisy resident greater racket-tailed drongo-cuckoo.

Even as I thought that this was the 'regular Indian cuckoo' that could be sighted again in the taman, going by previous records, there's nothing like getting it at this first sighting.   

But am I in for a thrill when I was corrected by a senior birder that the 'indian cuckoo supposed to have dark black band near tail end ... that's the definitive feature for me, but before seeing that, the head posture looks slightly different from an indian already ... i can only describe this as having a longer and straighter neck (?) than an indian', and this bird was subsequently identified as the Himalayan/Oriental Cuckoo (Cuculus saturatus), these two being practically visually alike but better differentiated by their calls.  However, I would take it as the Himalayan to err on the side of it being the more likely visitor here, as also recorded locally elsewhere before.

This bird breeds from the Himalayas ranging from northern India, north-eastern Pakistan to southern China and Taiwan, and is known to winter in South-east Asian and down to northern Australia.

Whilst it's of Least Concern status in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the Himalayan cuckoo is nevertheless an uncommon migrant here and hence its presence in a small taman like TRK is mega, and with this the species count stands at 111.

19/2021

Perhaps it was more than just the drongo-cuckoo that spooked it going by its backward glance before it fled.