Centropus sinensis

The Greater Coucal is a medium-sized bird with 6 subspecies.

The Greater Coucal prefers to move alone or in pairs, rarely in groups. It usually moves on the ground, and when resting, it also perches on small branches or basks in the sun on the top of reeds, especially after rain. It is good at hiding. When it encounters interference or danger, it quickly hides in the grass or bushes on the ground. It is also good at walking on the ground, jumping to feed, and moving very quickly. It often spreads its tail and wings into a fan shape and twists up and down. When flying, it flaps its wings quickly, spreads its tail feathers, and swings up and down. The speed is not fast, and it usually flies not far and lands on a short tree. Its call is continuous, from monotonous and low to loud, and its sound is like "hum-hum", like the barking of a dog in the distance, and can be heard from miles away. It calls frequently in the morning and evening.

The brown-winged cuckoo has a mixed diet, mainly caterpillars, locusts, grasshoppers, weevils, cockroaches, ants and bees. It also eats other invertebrates such as centipedes, crabs, snails, earthworms, crustaceans, mollusks, and vertebrates such as snakes, lizards, rodents, bird eggs and chicks. Sometimes it also eats some plant food such as weed seeds and fruits.

The male brown-winged cuckoo begins courting in March every year. The feathers on the body are fluffy, the wings are drooping, and the tail is fan-shaped. It surrounds and chases the female bird, and also uses singing to attract the female bird. At this time, the female bird often sings, and the sound of the call is like the "cluck, cluck" sound of a hen. Nests are built in grass, bushes, reeds, bamboo forests and climbing plants, with a height of 1-5 meters from the ground. The nest is made of twigs, grass stems, grass leaves, etc., and sometimes only one of these materials is used. The structure of the nest is relatively rough, spherical in shape, and the opening is on the upper side. The tail feathers of the parent bird incubating the eggs are often exposed outside the nest. Each nest lays 3-5 eggs. The eggs are white in color, sometimes with a light yellow luster, but it quickly fades during incubation. The male and female birds take turns incubating the eggs. After hatching, they cannot walk, but can stand in about a week.

The brown-winged cuckoo has a wide distribution range and is not close to the vulnerable and endangered critical value standard for species survival (distribution area or fluctuation range less than 20,000km², habitat quality, population size, and fragmented distribution area). The population trend is stable, so it is evaluated as a species of least concern.

The brown-winged cuckoo is an important economic bird resource in China. In the 1850s and 1960s, due to the excessive hunting of this bird in Guangdong, Guangxi and other places, up to hundreds of thousands of birds per year, the ecological environment was destroyed and the number of wild populations decreased sharply. In addition, traditional Chinese medicine believes that the brown cuckoo has high medicinal value, which led to the organization of professional teams in various parts of China to capture it, causing the number of wild populations in my country to decrease sharply and become endangered.

Listed in the 2012 Red List of Endangered Species of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) ver 3.1-Least Concern (LC).

Listed as a Class II protected animal in the "National Key Protected Wildlife List" issued by the Ministry of Forestry and the Ministry of Agriculture of China on January 14, 1989.

Listed in the "China Red List of Endangered Animals" which came into effect in 1996 - vulnerable (NT).

Protect wild animals and eliminate game.

Maintaining ecological balance is everyone's responsibility!

World distribution: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam.
Distribution in China: Distributed in Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangxi, Guangdong, Yunnan, southern Guizhou and Hainan Island.
The brown-winged cuckoo mainly inhabits forest edge shrubs, sparse grass slopes, river valley shrubs, grass and reeds in low mountains and hills and plains below 1,000 meters. It also appears in village shrubs and bamboo groves near water sources, but rarely appears in open areas.

The wings, shoulders and inner sides of the shoulders of the brown-winged cuckoo are maroon, and the rest of the body feathers, including the underwing coverts and tail feathers, are all black. There are purple-blue luster and bright black feather shaft lines from the head to the chest, green luster from the chest to the abdomen, and copper-green luster to the tail feathers. The primary flight feathers and outer secondary flight feathers have dark tips. In winter, the upper body feathers are light in color and the lower body has horizontal spots.
Brown-winged cuckoo juveniles have dark brown upperparts with reddish-brown horizontal spots, gray-white feather shafts, dark brown waist mixed with dirty white to brown horizontal spots; dark brown tail with a series of pale gray or gray-brown horizontal spots. The lower body is dark brown with narrow pale horizontal spots. As the young birds grow, the proportion of black increases and the horizontal spots decrease.
The brown-winged cuc