The African emerald cuckoo (Chrysococcyx cupreus) belongs to the family Cuculidae and is a species of Old World cuckoo. These avian creatures measure approximately 8.3 to 9.1 inches long and weigh about 1.2 ounces. With a compact, slender beak and striking golden-orange eyes, males display vibrant metallic green plumage, along with a bright yellow breast and abdomen.
Its tail feathers have white tips.
Females have eyebrows above, barred with green and white below.
A strikingly colorful bird, the African emerald cuckoo is found widely throughout sub-Saharan Africa, found in countries such as Ágola, Botswap and Bυrυпdi.
These birds like to inhabit densely wooded forests with mopape trees; However, they occasionally frequent urban areas, such as parks, gardens, and empty buildings.
The Emerald Cuckoo likes to dive into insects, such as butterflies, aphids, locusts, and caterpillars.
The female emerald cuckoo, which is not a species that creates its own pest or raises its own children, lays its eggs on the pests of other birds, mainly yellow-whiskered bulbils, bee-eaters and shrikes. She will usually wait until the pest’s owners stop foraging and will shed the existing eggs and lay her own. The occupants will return and incubate the cuckoo eggs, raising the young as their own.
This species has a very large breeding range and is described as common throughout most of this range, for this reason it is listed as lower copper on the IUCN list.
Watch and listen to this bird below:
