Asian Emerald Cuckoo

The Asian emerald cuckoo grows to about 18 cm. The adult male has an iridescent dark green head, upperparts and upper breast, a white lower breast and a green-barred belly, with orange bare skin around the eye and an orange-yellow beak tipped black. The adult female has coppery-green upperparts, a rusty-brown crown and nape and green-barred underparts (Wikipedia, general species account).

Its breeding range extends from the Himalaya eastward to Myanmar, China and northern Thailand; farther south it is a vagrant or migrant in northern India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Sumatra, where it is not known to breed. It is a brood parasite that lays in the nests of other birds such as the crimson sunbird and the little spiderhunter. It forages mainly in the upper levels of the canopy on insects and other small invertebrates. SoIB 2023 rates it a Moderate conservation priority, with a Restricted range of about 19,800 km² (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).