Tuas 16, 20Jul09
From GCAfter Gloria Seow's sighting of a rare Horsfield's Bronze-cuckoo on 14th June 2009 at Tuas, I kept an eye out for this bird initially, but had kinda stopped doing so after a while, when........
Date: 16 July 2009, 10am
Location: Tuas
Weather: Cloudy
Unexpectedly, I came face to face with a small cuckoo on 16 July 2009. It was perched on an acacia tree, at eye level. The first impressions were of its largely green and white plumage, with pale edged feathers on the upperparts plus a black bill, a pale supercilium and dull green eye-stripe and ear-coverts. Instantly, I knew I had hit the jackpot and almost held my breath! It did not have any red eye-ring and the dark bars on its white belly were not thin and complete like other small cuckoos. I scarcely dared to raise my camera. Surely, just as i finally raised my camera, the bird flew off. It landed about 5m up in the crown of a tree about 50m away. Despite my searches, it was not relocated.
Date: 20 July 2009, 1145H-1330H
Location: Tuas
Weather: Sunny
At an area 200m away from my 160709 sighting, I saw a small bird perched low, scanning its surroundings. I raised my binoculars and was glad to see that the Horsfield's Bronze-cuckoo was still around. This time round the bird was more tame and I managed to shadow the bird as it foraged. Perhaps it was more concerned abut finding food. It would fly from tree to tree, sometimes returning to the same tree and it kept to within approx 100m of where it was first encountered. Hunting from a low perch, it caught 7 prey in about 1.5 hours. Most of the prey were small hairy caterpillars, with at least 1 small centipede. Scanning from a low perch, it would sometimes tilt its head to have one eye looking at the ground and the other eye pointing into the sky. When it found something, it would drop to the ground to capture the prey. All of the prey were taken from the ground. After catching the prey, it would either remain on the ground or fly to a low perch. It would shake the prey from side to side several times before swallowing them whole. There were no attempts to wipe away the 'hairs' on the hairy caterpillars.
I also had better views of the bird this time round. Its underparts were white and it had dark barrings on the flanks. There were no barrings on the middle of the breast and belly. The undertail was white with dark bars.
The basal part of the outer uppertail was rufous. The upperparts were bronze-green and feathers pale-edged. It had a white supercilium and white moustachial stripe. It had a dark eye-stripe and dark ear coverts. Its bill and feet were black. The most interesting feature was its eyes - its pupil was dark with a pale iris.
A check on the field guides for this region revealed that they all describe the Horsfield's Bronze-cuckoo as having "dark eyes". The same goes for the Sclater's Australian Field Guide. In some of my pictures, the bird's eye does look dark, but in good lighting, as the attached picture shows, the eyes of this species is not all dark - it actually has a white iris, so I really wonder why this feature is not described in the field guides?
See my video here
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