Jabarkhet

Himalayan Cuckoo

Cuculus saturatus

The Himalayan Cuckoo is superficially very similar to the Eurasian Cuckoo  but is most easily distinguished by its voice. It has a deep resonant “boop-boop-boop-boop” song of four notes. The first note is slightly higher and slightly shorter than the other notes, it is followed by a very short pause with the other notes bouncing in a rhythmic fashion to the beat of 1, 2-3-4; the first note, if you listen carefully, actually has a very rapid double-beat.

 Usually there are 4 notes in each sequence but, as you can hear from that recording, there are occasionally 5 notes (listen to the 4th call in the recording). At a distance, the song is easily confused with that of a Hoopoe. 

It is possible to get confused by the name of this bird, some books call it Oriental Cuckoo and others Horsefield’s Cuckoo. This is because it has been subject to much revision in naming. Today it is generally accepted that Oriental Cuckoo (Cuculus saturatus optatus) is a sub-species of Himalayan Cuckoo (Cuculus s. saturatus) although some do recognise it as a true species (Cuculus optatus). The debate may go on, but most recordings of Oriental Cuckoo come from a band stretching from Western Europe to Japan, north of the Himalayan region, and the most common call has only two notes (“poop-poop”).