The diederik cuckoo, also known as the didrik cuckoo, is a beautiful bird with upper parts that are metallic green with a coppery colored wash and white blotches on the wing.
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| Diederik cuckoo in Nairobi NP in Kenya. |
The underparts are white with coppery green bars on the flanks. It has a distinctive white eye stripe, red eyes and a black bill. The female is more coppery on the back and wings and the immature bird has a red bill, which is what we found. It has a dee-dee-dee-deedric call which is how I assume it got its name. It is found in all of Sub-Saharan Africa except for true deserts. This has been one of the harder birds for me to identify. We only saw one, in Nairobi National Park.
YOU saw only one. I don't think I saw this little emerald gem until now.
ReplyDeleteI am constantly amazed at the colors and varieties of birds in the world--here is a good example.
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