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13

Oriental Cuckoo (Cuculus optatus) Alternate name(s): "Horsfield's Cuckoo", "Blyth's Cuckoo", "Saturated Cuckoo", "Hawk-cuckoo" Size: 28-33 cm; wing span 51-57 cm Body mass: 73-156 g Wing loading [g/cm2]: 0.25-0.29

Australia: Family Group 13 Family Group 13 Table Oriental Cuckoo Pallid Cuckoo Brush Cuckoo Black-eared Cuckoo Chestnut-breasted Cuckoo Fan-tailed Cuckoo Horsefield's Bronze-Cuckoo Shining Bronze-Cuckoo Little Bronze-Cuckoo Australian Koel Channel-billed Cuckoo Pheasant Coucal Rufous Owl Powerful Owl Barking Owl Australian Boobook Eastern Barn Owl Eastern Grass Owl Australian Masked Owl Greater Sooty Owl Lesser Sooty Owl Marbled Frogmouth Tawny Frogmouth Papuan Frogmouth White-throated Nightjar Spotted Nightjar Large-tailed Nightjar Australian Owlet-nightjar Family group table Index of bird names Habitat pages Key plants Thumbnails page Birds home page

Similar species

Description     Classification     Distribution     Sightings     Photos     Breeding     Nest     Eggs     Behaviour     Food     Call/s

Physical description Click here for a physical description Oriental Cuckoos are large cuckoos. They have a grey head, throat, chest and mantle. The belly, vent and undertail coverts are boldly barred dark-grey on white. The wings are dark-grey, with near-black flight feathers. The undertail is mostly dark-grey, with some white edge lining. The eyes are surrounded by yellow eye-rings. Males are always grey. Grey-morphology females have a rufous-tinged foreneck. Some females can have an hepatic (rufous) morphology, with a chest scalloped in shades of rufous-brown, and the head and back, including the wings, in shades of brown and dark-brown. All Oriental Cuckoos have yellowish irises, a black bill with a yellow lower base and orange legs and feet (the legs and feet may be paler, more yellowish, in hepatic females). The wings have the narrow white leading edge on the shoulders typical of many Australian cuckoo species.

Taxonomy, classification See Oriental Cuckoo at Wikipedia .

Range, habitat, finding this species Click here for information on habitat and range The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org . The global distribution of the Oriental Cuckoo is available HERE . Oriental Cuckoos breed in northern Eurasia, mostly eastward of Saint Petersburg, in northern Kazakhstan and Mongolia and also in northern China, Korea and in Japan. Their winter quarters are not well-known, but include Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea, western Micronesia, the Solomon Islands and Australia. Only some vagrants reach New Zealand. In Australia, Oriental Cuckoos are uncommon migrants from the North, mainly to the northern (near-)coastal fringe of the continent. In the West they can cross Eighty Mile Beach and reach the North-west Cape. From there they are found eastward, though the Kimberley, the Top End of the NT, around the South coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria and along Cape York peninsula. They usually follow the East coast and the Great Dividing Range as far southward as about the NSW/QLD border. Occasionally, they are found on a narrow coastal fringe in NSW, as far South as Sydney. In Australia Oriental Cuckoos are found mostly in forest and woodland, but they can also be present in parks.

Sightings Click here for sighting information An "hepatic" (rufous morphology) female Oriental Cuckoo was first spotted by B. Hensen at Eastlakes Golf Course in Sydney, NSW, in March 2017. This location is at the southern end of the species' range. M. Eaton reports spotting Oriental Cuckoos at Anstead, QLD, in March 2018 and again in March 2019, at Cattana Wetlands, Smithfield, QLD, in December 2018, and at Whites Hill Reserve, Brisbane, QLD, in February 2019. B. Hensen reports finding an Oriental Cuckoo at the Botanical Gardens, Darwin, NT, and another at Casuarina Coastal Reserve, Darwin, NT, in October 2018.

Photos

ADULT

PAIR

Many bird species exhibit sexual dimorphism, i.e., male and female have differing appearances which can be quite subtle.
Male Oriental Cuckoos, left, show only 3 colours: Grey, white and black. Females, in grey morphology, have a rufous-tinged foreneck; "hepatic" (rufous morphology) females are rufous wherever other Oriental Cuckoos are grey.

MALE

Frontal view of a male Oriental Cuckoo; note the all-grey upper body and head (photo courtesy of M. Eaton)
[Whites Hill Reserve, Brisbane, QLD, February 2019]

Near-frontal view of a male Oriental Cuckoo (photo courtesy of M. Eaton)
[Whites Hill Reserve, Brisbane, QLD, February 2019]

Lateral view of a male Oriental Cuckoo; note the absence of any rufous tinge on the foreneck, ruling out an adult female
(photo courtesy of M. Eaton)
[Anstead Reserve, Anstead, QLD, March 2019]

Lateral view of a male Oriental Cuckoo (photo courtesy of M. Eaton)
[Anstead Reserve, Anstead, QLD, March 2019]

Lateral view of a male Oriental Cuckoo foraging on the ground (photo courtesy of M. Eaton)
[Anstead Reserve, Anstead, QLD, March 2019]

Near-dorsal view of a male Oriental Cuckoo (photo courtesy of M. Eaton)
[Anstead Reserve, Anstead, QLD, March 2019]

Dorsal view of a male Oriental Cuckoo (photo courtesy of M. Eaton)
[Whites Hill Reserve, Brisbane, QLD, February 2019]

FEMALE

Grey morphology

Frontal view of a female Oriental Cuckoo; note the rufous-tinged foreneck (photo courtesy of M. Eaton)
[Anstead Reserve, Anstead, QLD, March 2019]

Near-frontal view of a female Oriental Cuckoo (photo courtesy of M. Eaton)
[Anstead Reserve, Anstead, QLD, March 2019]

Near-frontal view of a female Oriental Cuckoo (photo courtesy of M. Eaton)
[Anstead Reserve, Anstead, QLD, March 2019]

Rufous morphology

Lateral view of a "hepatic" (rufous morphology) female Oriental Cuckoo (photo courtesy of B. Hensen)
[Eastlakes Golf Course, Sydney, NSW, March 2017]

Lateral view of a "hepatic" (rufous morphology) female Oriental Cuckoo (photo courtesy of B. Hensen)
[Eastlakes Golf Course, Sydney, NSW, March 2017]

Near-dorsal view of a "hepatic" (rufous morphology) female Oriental Cuckoo (photo courtesy of B. Hensen)
[Eastlakes Golf Course, Sydney, NSW, March 2017]

Ventral view of a "hepatic" (rufous morphology) female Oriental Cuckoo (photo courtesy of B. Hensen)
[Eastlakes Golf Course, Sydney, NSW, March 2017]

Near-dorsal view of a "hepatic" (rufous morphology) female Oriental Cuckoo in low flight (photo courtesy of B. Hensen)
[Eastlakes Golf Course, Sydney, NSW, March 2017]

IMMATURE/JUVENILE

Lateral view of an immature male(?) Oriental Cuckoo moulting into adult plumage; note the white fringes of the wing feathers
(photo courtesy of B. Hensen)
[Botanical Gardens, Darwin, NT, October 2018]

Near-dorsal view of an immature male(?) Oriental Cuckoo moulting into adult plumage; note the white fringes of the wing feathers (photo courtesy of B. Hensen)
[Botanical Gardens, Darwin, NT, October 2018]

Dorsal view of an immature male(?) Oriental Cuckoo moulting into adult plumage; note the white fringes of the wing feathers
(photo courtesy of B. Hensen)
[Botanical Gardens, Darwin, NT, October 2018]

Near-lateral view of an immature female(?) Oriental Cuckoo (photo courtesy of M. Eaton)
[Cattana Wetlands, Smithfield, QLD, December 2018]

Lateral view of an immature Oriental Cuckoo (photo courtesy of P. Brown)
[Leanyer Swamp, Darwin, NT, December 2020]

Behaviour

Social behaviour: Territorial

Mobility: Migratory

Elementary unit: Solitary

Like basically all cuckoos, Fan-tailed Cuckoos host on somewhat smaller birds.

Food, Diet

Lateral view of a grey-morphology Oriental Cuckoo swallowing an insect (photo courtesy of B. Hensen)
[Botanical Gardens, Darwin, NT, November 2018]

Oriental Cuckoo with its prey, a hairy caterpillar (photo courtesy of M. Eaton)
[Anstead Reserve, Anstead, QLD, March 2019]

These pages are largely based on our own observations and those of our contributors. The structure of these bird pages is explained HERE. For more salient facts on any bird species please refer to a field guide.

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Disclaimer: Comments are always welcome. We give no guarantee that the information presented on these pages is always correct or up-to-date. External links are marked as such and we take no responsibility for the contents of external pages. All images on this site are protected by copyright & used by permission of the respective owners. If you wish to reproduce them or any of the material presented on this website, please contact us: We hereby acknowledge the original custodians of the land which is described on these pages, including the Gomeroi/Gamilaraay people of the North-west Slopes and Plains of NSW, and the traditional owners of other lands and nations within this country. We acknowledge elders past, present and emerging. Sovereignty was never ceded.          Last updated: Wed, 2 September 2026, 22:54 +00:00