Common hawk-cuckoo

Cuculus variusCuculus ejulans Sundevall, 1837[2] The common hawk-cuckoo (Hierococcyx varius), popularly known as the brainfever bird, is a medium-sized cuckoo resident in the Indian subcontinent.The resemblance to hawks gives this group the generic name of hawk-cuckoo; like many other cuckoos, these are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of babblers.During their breeding season in summer males produce loud, repetitive three-note calls that are well-rendered as brain-fever, the second note being longer and higher pitched.[12] When moving with a flock of babblers the chick makes a grating kee-kee call to beg for food and the foster parents within the group may feed it.[16] The call of this bird has been popularly transcribed as brain-fever in English (in some old books, this name is also incorrectly used for the Asian koel).[17] Other interpretations of the bird call include piyaan kahan in Hindi ("where's my love") or chokh gelo (in Bengali, "my eyes are gone") and paos ala (Marathi, "the rains are coming").The call "Pee kahan" or "Papeeha" is more accurately represented by the shrill screaming "pi-peeah" of the large hawk-cuckoo Hierococcyx sparverioides, which replaces the brainfever bird along the Himalayas and its foothills.[6] The brainfever bird's call may be heard all through the day, starting early before dawn and frequently during moonlit nights.
Call
Common Hawk Cuckoo, from Dhaka , Bangladesh
Immature with orange bill and indistinct eye-ring ( Kolkata )
Feeding on a hairy caterpillar
Conservation statusLeast ConcernIUCN 3.1Scientific classificationEukaryotaAnimaliaChordataCuculiformesCuculidaeHierococcyxBinomial nameSynonymsBangladeshcuckooIndian subcontinentshikrabrood parasitesbabblersplumagesparrowhawkslarge hawk-cuckooKolkatamonsoonscaterpillarsTranquebarMartin Hendriksen VahlPakistanHimalayasBhutanNorth East IndiaSri LankaIndianmigratorybrood parasiteT C JerdonTurdoides striatusTurdoides affinisTurdoides malcolmiEnglishAsian koelFrank FinnBengaliMarathiHierococcyx sparverioidesAllan SealyIUCN Red List of Threatened SpeciesAli, SalimJ C DanielBombay Natural History SocietyOxford University PressYouTubeNewsletter for BirdwatchersHimmatsinhji, MKWikidataWikispeciesAvibaseBirdLifeiNaturalistOpen Tree of LifeXeno-canto