Kishoreda was a Grey bellied Cuckoo

Kishore Kumar was a Grey-bellied Cuckoo! What are your favourite Kishoreda songs? Drop them in the comments. Comic from Roundglass Sustain celebrating monsoon and the bird of the season!

To read a similar strip about Mohammad Rafi and the Magpie Robin, visit Roundglass Sustain here.

Brood Parasitism and Going Cuckoo

The Common Hawk-Cuckoo, also called the Brainfever (Papeeha), is a brood parasite of a common backyard bird: the Jungle Babbler. Spring is the time to look out for hungry cuckoo chicks pestering their foster parents! 

Comic from my column with Roundglass Sustain.

Cuckoo Fathers Day Greeting

Meet the Pied Cuckoo, the harbinger of monsoons and a sneaky nest parasite! The comic appears in my column with Sunday Mid-Day today.

A happy Fathers' Day to all fathers (and foster fathers) tame and wild! Prints are available as posters and greetings on my webstore here. Orders within India are available as A3 and A2 size prints, which can be placed by emailing me on rohanchakcartoonist@gmail.com.

The first rains

Monsoons are generally not considered a birding season, but in India, it does fill birders with much anticipation and excitement. The arrival of the Pied Cuckoo in India coincides with that of the monsoon winds and hence it is revered as the harbinger of rains. A birdwatcher's delight, this bird is an absolute thrill to track in the monsoons. It is a brood parasite that nests around this time of the year, parasitizing the nests of babblers. Pairs can often be seen courting each other, whistling a loud but melodious "peeu-peeu". Hairy caterpillars are the Pied Cuckoo's favourite food, and it is quite a sight to watch the bird tackle one, so I've drawn a caricature of the Pied Cuckoo with its breakfast-

The comic appeared in The Hindu Business Line this weekend and is available as an A3/A4 print, and so is the caricature. Mail me at rohanchakcartoonist@gmail.com to book your prints or purchase your prints online here.

Also have a look at Migrant Watch's Pied Cuckoo Campaign that attempts to engage birdwatchers to study the migration patterns of the Pied Cuckoo.

Smart Nesting!

"Nest parasitism or brood parasitism" is a phenomenon in which a bird raids another bird's nest, destroys its eggs and lays its own eggs in the nest. The cuckoo is an 'interspecific' nest parasite. It usually lays its eggs in the nests of babblers and crows. the 'host' species, i.e whose nests have been raided, incubate the cuckoo egg and the raise the cuckoo chick as their own, acting as foster parents to the cuckoo offspring.
Brood parasitism is also seen in various insects, fish, reptiles and other birds such as some species of duck, cowbirds and honeyguides.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.