AJP saw these Greater Coucals (Centropus sinensis) in the garden on a hot day last week. Resident in Hong Kong they are known to sunbathe, particularly in the mornings. More often they are spotted clambering around shrubs or on the ground in search of food, animal and vegetable. They make short flights but always seeming to have difficulty in doing so.
For decades these birds wered known as crow-pheasants since they do resemble both a crow and a pheasant. However they are cuckoos but not brood parasitic ones, building a well-hidden nest in May and June.
They were one heavily trapped for sale in Chinese medicine. We found noose traps, illegal then as now, which used a bent twig as the spring, set along a path in the New Territories in January 1968
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| A noose trap set on a track (which must now be part of the Maclehose Trail) January 1968 |
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