The Common Hawk Cuckoo is a fairly common breeding summer visitor to our area. Most birds begin arriving in March and leaving in October but there have been a few winter records. In much of India it is resident and, like all cuckoos, its main food source is caterpillars. Our area is usually too cold for most caterpillars in the winter months and as a result the cuckoos have to leave us for warmer climes further south. It is a secretive bird not readily seen except in flight but its call is one of the best known sounds of summer. It calls a loud, incessant “dee dee dit” often rendered as “brain-fever” or “chok ga lo” and is given to calling in the early morning before sunrise. The call often rises and increases to a manic pitch, which together with its persistence, gives rise to its popular name of Brain-fever Bird.

This cuckoo parasitises Turdoides babblers in our area, mainly Jungle and Common Babblers. It breeds when they do in the hot summer months. The newly hatched cuckoo ejects the eggs or young of its host, stimulated by an irritable patch on its back. It then monopolises the food sources. It is mostly found in well-wooded country and scrub including groves and lines of trees as well as parks and large gardens. It therefore has a wide distribution but is nowhere common. The adults depart south before the young and so from September most birds seen are juveniles. They then instinctively make their own way south.