The loudest bird of an Indian summer is one almost nobody has seen. It calls from inside a tree, all day and much of the night, in a rising three-note phrase that repeats until it becomes genuinely maddening — and then the rain arrives and it stops.
The bird that calls before the rain
This is the Common Hawk-Cuckoo, and the colonial nickname for it was not affectionate. British residents in India called it the fever bird because the call — pee-pee-ah, pee-pee-ah, each repetition higher and more insistent than the last — is what a rising fever sounds like from the inside.
In Hindi it is papiha, and in Indian poetry it is a bird of longing rather than illness, calling for rain and for an absent lover. Same bird, same call, entirely opposite readings.
Why it looks like a hawk
The resemblance is not accidental. Hawk-cuckoos are grey above with barred underparts, a yellow eye-ring and yellow legs, and in flight they look convincingly like a Shikra — a small hawk that small birds are genuinely afraid of.
The current thinking is that this is deliberate. A cuckoo that looks like a predator can approach a nest while the owners panic instead of mobbing, which is exactly the few seconds it needs.
The other one, and the birds it uses
The Grey-bellied Cuckoo is smaller, greyer, and far less famous — a slim cuckoo with a long graduated tail and a whistled, descending call quite unlike the hawk-cuckoo’s hysteria.
What makes it interesting is its choice of host. It lays in the nests of prinias and tailorbirds — birds a fraction of its size, building tiny domed or stitched nests in low scrub.
The Ashy Prinia is a common garden and scrub bird, grey above with a rufous wash below, a cocked tail and a sharp tchip call. It weighs about seven grams.
The Grey-breasted Prinia is similar and often alongside it, distinguished by a streaked grey breast in breeding plumage and a different, more chattering song.
A cuckoo chick in a prinia nest is grotesque long before it fledges. It outgrows the nest, the foster parents feed something several times their own size, and they carry on doing it because the begging call overrides everything they otherwise know.
And the bulbuls
The Red-whiskered Bulbul — pointed black crest, crimson cheek patch, white cheek, red vent — is another regular host, particularly for the Pied Cuckoo.
Bulbuls and babblers are among the hosts that fight back. They can recognise and eject a foreign egg some of the time, which is precisely why cuckoo eggs have evolved to match their hosts’ so closely. This is an arms race with no finish line: better forgeries, better detection, repeat.
Listening for them
- Common Hawk-Cuckoo: a three-note rising pee-pee-ah, repeated endlessly, loudest in the hot weeks before the rains break.
- Grey-bellied Cuckoo: a clear descending whistle, much less insistent.
- Asian Koel: the other summer noise — a rising ko-el, ko-el. It parasitises crows.
- Pied Cuckoo: the “rain bird”, black and white with a crest, arriving just before the monsoon.
- Indian Cuckoo: a four-note phrase famously rendered as bo-ko-ta-ko or “one more bottle”.
A note on bird names
We identify these birds ourselves, from photographs taken in the field, and we do not always get it right. A great many Indian species are close cousins separated only by a head pattern, a leg colour or a wingbar, and several have been split or renamed in recent years — so two good field guides can genuinely disagree about the same bird.
Where we are not certain, we say so rather than guess. If you think we have named a bird wrongly here, please tell us — we are still learning this ourselves, and we would far rather correct a name than leave a wrong one standing.
Frequently asked questions
Which bird calls endlessly before the monsoon?
The Common Hawk-Cuckoo. Its rising, endlessly repeated three-note call carries through the hot pre-monsoon weeks, day and night.
Why does a hawk-cuckoo look like a hawk?
The resemblance to a Shikra appears to help it approach nests — host birds panic rather than mob it, which is all the time it needs to lay.
Do all cuckoos lay eggs in other birds’ nests?
Not all, but the Indian summer cuckoos discussed here do. Hosts include prinias, tailorbirds, bulbuls, babblers and crows depending on the species.
Can host birds detect cuckoo eggs?
Sometimes. Bulbuls and babblers can reject foreign eggs, which is why cuckoo eggs have evolved to mimic host eggs closely.
When are these cuckoos most vocal?
From roughly April through the monsoon, peaking in the hot weeks just before the rains break.
Related: The Babbler and the Seven Sisters and Red-vented Bulbul.