Black-winged Cuckooshrike

Black-winged Cuckooshrike
on Banyan Ficus benghalensis at Jayanti in Buxa Tiger Reserve in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal, India.
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Campephagidae
Genus: Coracina
Species: C. melaschistos
Binomial name
Coracina melaschistos
(Hodgson, 1836)

The Black-winged Cuckooshrike or Smaller Grey Cuckoo-Shrike (Coracina melaschistos) is a species of cuckooshrike found in South to Southeast Asia.

Contents

Distribution

It is distributed from Northeast Pakistan through the lower Himalayan region (Uttaranchal, Nepal, Arunachal Pradesh and into the hills of NE Myanmar continuing to China and Southeast Asia. It winters in the foothills, occasionally longer distances (e.g. Kerala).

Habitat: open forest, groves, singly or in pairs.

Description

A medium sized, dark cuckoo-shrike with unbarred, grey underparts.

Call: Loud twit twit to we, descending in scale.

Diet: mainly invertebrates.

Nests in tree.

References

  1. ^ BirdLife International (2009). "Coracina melaschistos". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.3. International Union for Conservation of Nature. http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/146826. Retrieved 2010-10-22. 
  2. ^ Grewal, Bikram; Bill Harvey and Otto Pfister (2002). Photographic guide to birds of India. Periplus editions / Princeton University Press.  p. 257.