Blue-faced Malkoha

The blue-faced malkoha, or small green-billed malkoha, is a non-parasitic cuckoo about 39cm long. It is dark grey above with an oily green or blue gloss and has a long, graduated tail with white-tipped feathers, a pale ochre to grey belly, an apple-green bill and a large patch of bare blue skin around a red eye. The chin and throat feathers are branched with pointed, yellowish tips, giving a spiny, streaked look. The sexes are alike, and young birds are duller with some brown in the wing (Wikipedia, general species account).

It lives in open forest and scrub jungle and is generally silent, though it may give a low, croaking kraa when flushed. It nests inside a thorny bush, building a thick platform of twigs lined with green leaves, and lays two, rarely three, chalky white eggs; the breeding season is extended and not well known. SoIB 2023 treats it as endemic to the Indian subcontinent and resident in India, finds its trends stable, and rates it a Low conservation priority (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).