COIMBATORE: Plaintive cuckoo (cacomantis merulinus), usually seen in southeast Asia and NE India was spotted for the first time in south Tamil Nadu at Rajapalayam in Virudhunagar district. It was earlier recorded in north Tamil Nadu in Chennai in November 2025.
“Though plaintive cuckoos could have made visits to South India previously, there is no record. Bird enthusiasts in Rajapalayam spotted the bird last week and recorded it on the eBird portal. The same bird species was spotted in November in Chennai,” said T Arulvelan, who is Tamil Nadu Coordinator of Asian Waterbird Census (AWC) .
Bird enthusiasts across the state have been involved in AWC which has so far covered as many as 160 wetlands and recorded many other rare birds, such as masked booby, red-billed tropicbird, spotted redshank, Pallas’s gull, dunlin, black bellied plover and Eurasian wigeon among others and recorded details of these birds with photos on eBird.
Though the plaintive cuckoo is not a water bird, it was cited during AWC. Bird enumerators said they will be able to cover at least 300 wetlands in the coming days and they expect to notice more rare wetland birds since the census will be carried out till February 28.
“We are focusing more between January 3 and 18 which are key highlights for focusing on the migratory birds (especially migration from the northern hemisphere, where the winter is severe) though the census was commenced on December 1. There are multiple reasons behind why we are concentrating more on January 3 to 18 - it is the peak migratory season for birds and holidays for bird enthusiasts,” said eBird reviewer Arulvelan, who is a veterinary doctor.