KC Tsang photographed a Drongo Cuckoo (Surniculus lugubris) on 4th November 2008 at Singapore’s Neo Tiew Lane.
This cuckoo is an uncommon resident and winter visitor. The resident supspecies is barussarum, whose range includes the Malay Peninsular, Sumatra and Borneo. Subspecies dicruroides that breeds throughout the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka, China, Southeast Asia to the Greater Sundas, Bali, the Philippines, Sulawesi to the Moluccas, is the visitor. The population of this cuckoo in Singapore is estimated to be around 15-20 (Wang & Hails, 2007)
Unfortunately the two subspecies cannot be differentiated in the field.
R Subaraj has this to say: “…do bear in mind that the National Threatened resident population is restricted to the Central Nature Reserves only and at this time of year we get migrants of this species turning up in various parts of the island.”
After KC posted his sighting of the Drongo Cuckoo, Ben Lee indicated that he saw the bird along Kranji Trail on 14th September. Unfortunately he failed to photograph the bird.
Reference:
Wang, L.K. & C. J. Hails, 2007. An annotated checklist of birds of Singapore. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, Supplement 15: 1-179.
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