In this post I will share about cuckoos and their relatives, a type of bird I have been craving to see even back in Taiwan. In Sarawak, I saw five cuckoos, one of which I only heard. First, the Indian Cuckoo belongs in the Cuculus genus which has 11 members, while the Plaintive Cuckoo and Brush Cuckoo belong in the Cacomantis genus. Of the Malkohas that I saw, the Chestnut-breasted belongs to the Phaenicophaeus genus and the Raffles’s is genus Rhinortha, of which it is the sole member, and the Red-billed belongs in the Zanclostomus genus.
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| The silhouette of a Indian Cuckoo |
The Indian Cuckoo is a pretty plain yet iconic cuckoo. It has a gray head, and a striped underbelly to confuse potential victims into thinking it’s a hawk. Cuckoos are infamous for practicing brood parasitism, laying eggs in other birds nests, mainly birds much smaller than cuckoos. Prinas, drongos, and other small passerines all fall victim. This bird is an insectivore, usually feeding on caterpillars, but sometimes fruit too. We saw this cuckoo on the first day in Kubah. Before we entered the National Park, we stopped at an abandoned piece of land. After we got out of the car, we started to play this cuckoo’s call, which is a four note whistle. It almost immediately started to respond, but after multiple tries, it just wouldn’t come out. Soon, the empty lot was filled with various bird songs, Barbets, Bee-eaters, Sunbirds, quite a dizzying array of birds. Thus, we forgot about the cuckoo. Only in between aggregations of birds, the cuckoo would call again, and either Julianna would play the bird song, or I would try my best to imitate its call by whistling. After a couple of hours of outstanding birding, while we were heading back to the car, the Indian Cuckoo started calling again. After calling back, it sounded very close. Even though it was close, there was way too much vegetation in the way. Just when we were about to give up, the cuckoo literally flew over my head, and into the opposite trees. At first it was a bit obscured, then it flew down to an exposed branch. Even though it was against the light, the silhouette of the bird obviously marked it as a cuckoo.
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| Due to the light, this Raffles's Malkoha picture isn't great |
The next birds are the Plaintive Cuckoo and the Brush Cuckoo. Like other cuckoos, the Plaintive Cuckoo has a gray head, but has an orange belly instead of stripes across. Rather, the stripes appear on the tail. The Brush Cuckoo however, (at least the subspecies that occurs in Borneo) has only a gray head, but the breast is orange with a slightly white throat. They occupy all sorts of habitats, from swamps to montane forests. They eat a wide range of insects, including caterpillars, beetles, wasps etc. The Brush Cuckoo we heard at Bako National Park, when we couldn’t identify a sound we kept hearing, Dad looked at the possibilities from ebird, then used merlin to identify the sound. Sure enough it was a Brush Cuckoo! The sighting of the Plaintive Cuckoo was quite unexpected. On our last couple of free days in Kuching, (the rest of the time was arranged for various trips with the travel agency), we decided to visit the Borneo Culture Village. The village was very cool, we learned a lot about the different cultures in Borneo, especially the indigenous people. While we were walking around, we heard this cuckoo calling. After some scanning, there was a silhouette of a bird. I quickly got my binoculars out, and I was able to get a picture of it on my P900. Further discussion revealed it to be a lifer for us! All those years looking for cuckoos, we see it where we least expect it.
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| Chestnut-breasted Malkoha |
Next, is the Raffles’s Malkoha. This is an interesting bird, and is unique among malkohas because of its obvious sexual dimorphism. The male is almost coucal-like, with an entirely russet brown body, a long tail, and a white beak. The female however, has a white head and breast, the rest being similar to the male. It prefers dense forest with lots of vegetation and it feeds on insects, mostly caterpillars. We encountered this bird numerous times, all in Kubah National Park. An interesting observation is that when we saw the Raffles’s Malkoha, we always saw it when there were a bunch of other birds around. It is a fairly large bird, so it is pretty hard to miss. However, whenever we saw it, it was always in the high branches, making a good look next to impossible.
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| Chestnut-breasted Malkoha |
The Chestnut-breasted Malkoha is, personally, a much more interesting malkoha than the Raffles’s. This bird has quite a comical air to it, with a coppery-green wing and underbelly, a chestnut breast, blue eyes, red bill and bare skin around eye, and a grayish head and nape. It favors a similar habitat to Raffles’s, but its diet has a much wider range, eating anything from snakes to ants. This bird we actually saw very early on in Kubah, but only Dad got a good look. I, on the other hand, didn’t even catch a glimpse of it! At first I was very disappointed, but Julianna reassured me that we would have other chances. At the place where I saw the Green Broadbill, like I said in the previous blog post, there was quite a commotion of birds. In this group of birds, there was a malkoha, up in the branches above me. I thought it was just a Raffles’s Malkoha, but later while I was looking at the pictures, I zoomed in and much to my surprise, it was actually a Chestnut-breasted Malkoha. I was very excited by this, both finally seeing this malkoha, but also getting a decent enough picture of it too. However, the next bird genuinely flabbergasted me.
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| A Red-billed Malkoha, with head obscured |
This malkoha has a slender red bill, a chestnut throat, a gray breast, and a gray belly. It is slightly smaller than the Chestnut-breasted, but this one has some white patches on the tail, and has a black eye instead of red. Its habitat is similar to other malkohas, but it favors tall trees. Its food is also similar to the other malkohas, but not as diverse as the Chestnut-breasted. My sighting of this bird is very interesting. At the pavilion, while we were resting, I saw a big bird moving around in a tall tree, but when I picked up my binoculars, I couldn’t find it. Everytime I lowered my binoculars, I would see movement in the trees again, but I wasn’t sure whether it was because it was obscured that I couldn’t see it, or for reasons unknown. I just couldn’t see the bird! Exasperated, I tried using my camera to see if it would work or not, and just then, it decided to jump onto a half exposed branch. It kind of looked like a Chestnut-breasted Malkoha, so I didn’t give it a second thought. But when I finished this very blog post, I was looking through my pictures on the camera, when I came upon the picture I was just talking about. I noticed something different about this “Chestnut-breasted Malkoha.” It just didn’t look right. I clicked on the eBird tab I was looking at previously and clicked on the bird before the Chestnut-breasted, and the description fit perfectly. It was a Red-billed Malkoha. Delighted, I rushed to tell Dad about the find, a Malaysian lifer nearly a month after we went!
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