Pheasant Coucal
Centropus phasianinus· 杜鹃科(1 photos)
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Pheasant Coucal
50-70 cm.
Female larger. Long-tailed, short-legged, skulking, pheasant-like bird. Breeding Plumage: bill black; eye red; head/neck/body blackish, streaked by glossy feather shafts; wings and back chestnut, barred/streaked black, rusty and cream. Non-breeding: bill horn-coloured; head/neck/body yellow-buff; upperparts rufous, streaked paler, richly barred and patterned. Immature: bill and eye brown; plumage fawner. Singles, pairs: sits oddly in leafy saplings, fence posts; runs heavily across roads, clearings; flies clumsily on short wings, flops into cover; ascends saplings, flies from top. Takes eggs, nestlings; mobbed by other birds.
- Other name
- Cane Pheasant; Swamp Pheasant.
- Voice
- deep, hollow accelerating, descending 'coop-coop-coop-coop-coop-coop', like liquid glugging from bottle; quiet scolding.
- Habitat
- grassy, swampy flats, wet heathlands; rank growth in clearings, wasteland; scrub on watercourses, lantana thickets, brigalow, pandanus, mangrove-fringes, sugar cane, roadsides, gardens.
- Breeding
- Oct.-April. Builds own nest, incubates eggs, feeds young.
- Nest
- saucer-shaped, of grass lined with leaves, in grass clump, bush, pandanus, sugar cane; drawn together overhead, open each end; up to 2 m from ground.
- Eggs
- 3-5 (7); dirty white, chalky; stained brownish, scratched.
- Range & Status
- coastal nw., n. and e. Aust., from Pilbara and Kimberley (WA) to Top End (NT), Gulf coast (Q); n. and e. Q, inland to Mt Isa, Carnarvon Ras.-Mitchell-Warwick; e. NSW s. to near Ulladulla, inland to c. Narrabri. Common. Sedentary. Also PNG.
- Distribution key to races
- 1. Centropus phasianinus thierfelderi 2. Centropus phasianinus melanurus 3. Centropus phasianinus phasianinus
