Banded Bay Cuckoo

The banded bay cuckoo is a small cuckoo about 22cm long. Adults are bright rufous or bay on the head and back, broadly barred with dark brown, with a long, slightly curved bill and a distinctive whitish eyebrow above a dark eye-line. The underparts are whitish with fine dark lines, the iris is yellow and the graduated tail has a black band near the tip and white tips. The sexes are alike. The rufous forms of the plaintive and brush cuckoos can look similar, but the eyebrow, long bill and barred tail separate it (Wikipedia, general species account).

It lives in well-wooded country, mainly in hills, where males sing a distinctive high-pitched four-note call from exposed branches. It eats insects, gleaned from foliage or caught in short flights. It is a brood parasite, with hosts that include ioras, bulbuls, minivets and small babblers, and its eggs resemble theirs. Many populations are migratory or partly so (Wikipedia, general species account).