The common hawk-cuckoo calls the tune

It is vocal through the day, and its three-note call enunciates the term “brain fever”. The bird is in its breeding season and residents of IIT-M campus report being woken up to this phrase in the dead of the night

Birder Rama Neelamegam lets on about a mid-click blooper from 2017. Executed at the woods of the Theosophical Society, the photographic click was a half measure — a half bird, actually. It left a common hawk-cuckoo’s barred tail to the imagination. The bird was at close quarters, and a neophyte with the camera then, Rama could not make the most of the moment. The image was clicked at the speed of greased lightning, but the other hand failed to rotate the focus-ring just that wee bit, to get the complete bird. “At that time, I did not know how to shift the focus. After I learnt how to, I did not see the bird at close quarters,” Rama makes a laugh out of the botched operation.