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Bird

Pied Cuckoo

Clamator jacobinus

हिन्दी: चातक

IUCN: Least Concern
Pied Cuckoo (Clamator jacobinus) photographed by Devendra Bhardwaj

Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Ghat Ki Guni, Jaipur, Rajasthan · Resized

Scientific name
Clamator jacobinus
Hindi name
चातक
Family
Cuculidae, order Cuculiformes
Group
Bird
Conservation status
Least Concern

The monsoon messenger, said to arrive with the first rains.

  • Spot it Black and white with a crest and white wing flashes.
  • Home Thorny scrub and open woodland; arrives in India with the monsoon.
  • Food web Eats caterpillars and insects; lays eggs in babbler nests.
  • Why it matters Eats hairy caterpillars few birds will touch, helping protect trees; its arrival marks the monsoon.

Read more: Jacobin cuckoo on Wikipedia

Sources and credits

Records and field notes

  • RajasthanDevendra Bhardwaj has 1 verified record of this species on iNaturalist in 2014, in Jaipur.[20]

Sources

  1. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (species pages linked on each entry) (database). Global conservation status. Every species page was opened.
  2. Devendra Bhardwaj. iNaturalist observations and notes, with place and date (inaturalist.org/people/devendrabhardwaj) (field record). The observer's own dated records and notes, with places. Statements in his notes are his own and were not independently checked by KJVF.
  3. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF species data (family, order, Hindi names, IUCN category) (database). Open biodiversity data. Used for classification, Hindi common names and the IUCN category where one is given.
  4. Wikidata (Hindi labels for species) (database). Open data, used for Hindi common names.
  5. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (opening lines of each species article, CC BY-SA 4.0). The link on each entry goes to the article (reference). Not peer reviewed. Only the opening description is used, and statements about origin or medicinal use are left out.
  6. Short introductions and key points written with AI help (Google Gemini and Claude) and checked against GBIF where possible (reference). AI-assisted text for general readers. Please check important details before relying on them.

The tag before each record shows the place it was checked for.

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