A Plaintive Cuckoo in plain sight

View of the park  18 Dec'16

 It looks like a lazy Sunday.  At around 7 am I took a walk around the park to check out the greenery and nature.  The mix of leaves, branches and colour are a delight to my eyes, as I wander around the park to seek for surprises.  This year the month of December has been a let down.  It should be raining on daily basis but for about a week now the rainy monsoon left no down pours. The ground thus remain dry where ever I walked.  Have the global climatic changes elsewhere resulted in a drier monsoon for Bintulu? I am fortunate to be engulfed by massive structures of greenery as I walked underneath the canopy of tall trees of various species. This is the kind of living world that I seek, a silent walk in nature to help  re-collect my mind as often as possible.  The surrounding landscape makes me admire nature for the many stories it want to tell me. And today nature gives me a rare insight into one of its bird species.  For about an hour I was hearing the familiar call of the Plaintive Cuckoo, a bird more heard than seen in Bintulu.  In my mind it must have signaled me to hunt for the bird and perhaps photograph it.  I was camera ready when I saw the Plaintive cuckoo in plain sight.  It was perching on the branches of a dying Cempedak tree.  I took several shots of it from various angles to capture what was once a tremendous challenge for me.  This morning walk was well paid for with the capture of the bird and the music it made.  The Plaintive Cuckoos utters an ascending call which I hear every day in the morning and evening but fail to capture the origin until today.  The call sounds like " teet- teet- teet -teet ta ta tay".  In zooming the pictures, I noticed it has a grey head, neck and upper breast.  Its lower breast to under-tail coverts has a pastel orange colour.  Its feet yellow and has a black bill.  What strikes me was the position of its perching, as if it was sitting upright and  parrallel to the branch.  Indeed this morning walk was a moment of truth for me with the sighting of the Plaintive Cuckoo.

Plaintive Cuckoo seen at a distance 

Close-up of the Plaintive Cuckoo.
Location : Zone E