Dear Readers, when I was listening to the Cuckoo at Wicken Fen (see yesterday’s post), I suddenly became curious about what other cuckoo species sounded like. The birds are all described as ‘noisy’ and apparently some of them are specialist eaters of big hairy caterpillars that other birds turn their beaks up at. They are all brood parasites too. But I just love their ‘songs’ – see what you think of the examples below.

First up, the ‘ordinary’ Eurasian cuckoo (sadly not half as ordinary  as it used to be, but that will be the subject of another post)

Now, here’s the Black Cuckoo (Cuculus clamosus), a southern African bird with a rather plaintive three-note call…(see photo at the top)

Then there’s the African Cuckoo (Cuculus gularis). This bird looks remarkably like ‘our’ cuckoo to my untutored eye, and it’s  found right across sub-Saharan Africa – it migrates around the continent, but doesn’t come to Europe.

The call of the African Cuckoo is very like the Eurasian Cuckoo too, with a bit more emphasis on the second ‘syllable’ to my ear.

And here’s another African species, the Red-chested Cuckoo (Cuculus solitarius) – known as ‘Piet-my-vrou’ after its call. Let’s have a listen!

The Lesser Cuckoo (Cuculus poliocephalus) is found across Asia, and has the most complicated call that we’ve heard so far – between four and six notes!

The Sulawesi Cuckoo (Cuculus crassirostris) is known only from Sulawesi.

It has a rather mysterious little three-note song.

Sticking with Asia, here’s the Indian Cuckoo (Cuculus micropterus). With my biologist hat on, I am wondering about the relationships between these species, and whether their songs are similar depending on how closely related they are. Hmmm.

We have a four-note song in this case.

I would have expected the Madagascar Cuckoo (Cuculus rochii) to sound markedly different from the other cuckoos, but no. Another four-note song. The bird looks similar to the others, too.

The Himalayan Cuckoo has possibly the most monotonous call, with no intonation at all.

But then there’s the Oriental Cuckoo, which also goes for repetition in a big way…

And finally, the Sunda Cuckoo (Cuculus lepidus). These last three birds (the Himalayan Cuckoo, the Oriental Cuckoo and the Sunda Cuckoo) all used to be considered one species until they were ‘split’ a few years ago – I think if you listen to the songs one after the other, you can tell that the species are closely related, but there are subtle differences in the tempo and pitch of the calls. I would love to know what someone with a musical background makes of all this, for sure!

So here’s the Sunda Cuckoo, to finish off with. I think it sounds a bit like Morse code.