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Common Hawk-cuckoo

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Presence of Common Hawk-cuckoo is easily detected at our campus whole year by its loud calls. It is specifically more vocal in summer. We can hear its calls literally throughout the day, early mornings are their favourite time for singing. In fact these manic, piercing calls sometimes gets on our nerves and earned its famous nickname ‘ brain-fever bird’ . The call of this bird also popularly transcribed as brain-fever in English from its remarkable resemblance to the word "brain- fever… brain-fever…” repeated 5-6 times in a piercing voice running up the scale. The bird is called “ બાપૈયો - Bappaiyo ” in our Gujarati language. Here in Gujarat farmers consider call of Common Hawk-cuckoo as good omen…! Rural people believes call of Common Hawk-cuckoo is a sign of rain coming very soon…! The common hawk-cuckoo is a medium- sized cuckoo, with distinctive yellow eye ring, easily mistaken for Shikra. But then easily separate by cuckoo-like bill, broadly barred tail and n