Cuculus vagans
Silhouette: Nicolas Huet le Jeune and Jean-Gabriel Prêtre (vectorized by T. Michael Keesey) · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
The moustached hawk-cuckoo (Hierococcyx vagans) is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. It is found in Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Thailand. Its natural habitat is evergreen and secondary forests. Threatened by habitat loss, it has been assessed as a near-threatened species.
Salomon Müller described the species in 1845, as Cuculus vagans. The species is monotypic. The moustached hawk-cuckoo is found in southern Myanmar, Thailand, southern Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and Kalimantan, Sumatra and Java of Indonesia. Its habitat is evergreen and secondary forests and forest edges, especially on hills and in alluvial and bamboo forests. It occurs at elevations up to 915 m (3,002 ft).
The moustached hawk-cuckoo is 25–30 cm (9.8–11.8 in) long, and it weighs about 58–63 g (2.0–2.2 oz). The crown and nape are grey. The ear coverts are white, and there is a blackish moustache. The back is brown, and the tail has brown bands and a buffy or white tip. The flight feathers have buffy bars. The underparts are creamy-white, with blackish streaks. The eye is dark brown or grey, with a yellow eye-ring around... Wikipedia →
Recording1:01
Malaysia · 2024
© Dixon Lau · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Danum Valley Conservation Area | 🇲🇾 Malaysia | |
| 2 | Taman Negara National Park | 🇲🇾 Malaysia | |
| 3 | Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary | 🇲🇾 Malaysia | |
| 4 | Kaeng Krachan National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 5 | Kinabalu Park | 🇲🇾 Malaysia |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Moustached Hawk-Cuckoo sighting in Taman Negara National Park on a given day, based on 33 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 195th most-seen of the 293 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.
March
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Moustached Hawk-Cuckoo in Taman Negara National Park on a given day, against under 5% in April to February, the lowest months. That is one of Taman Negara National Park's driest months, with about 100 mm of rain against 330 mm in November.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Moustached Hawk-Cuckoo sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
2nd of 5
Of the 5 parks where we can rate Moustached Hawk-Cuckoo sightings, Taman Negara National Park ranks 2nd at under 5%. The best odds are in Danum Valley Conservation Area (Malaysia, about 10%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Moustached Hawk-Cuckoo is recorded against all the birds logged in Taman Negara National Park (33 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
