Common cuckoo
Cuculus canorus
A grey, hawk-like bird with a two-note call. Confirmed in Georgia as a breeding migrant on the 2024 national bird checklist; it does not stay the winter.
Overview
What is Common cuckoo
The common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) is a medium-sized brood-parasitic bird (family Cuculidae) confirmed in Georgia as a breeding migrant. The 2024 annotated checklist of the birds of Georgia codes it BB; M: a breeder that is absent in the non-breeding season, and also a bird of passage. Seasonality is classed as high-quality (code A). Occurrence quality is high (H), with photographs. Adults are about 32–34 cm long at species level, slate-grey above, with barred underparts. It is not a threat to people. IUCN lists the species as Least Concern. The 2024 checklist assigns the same category nationally.
Last updated
Gallery
Common cuckoo in photos
Photo: ზაური ხაჩიძე
Photo: Andy Morffew
Thursley Common ·
Photo: Reinhold Möller
Bösenbechhofen ·
Photo: Jac. Janssen
Kempenbroek ·
Photo: TRinaud
Durankulak ·
Photo: Andreas Eichler
Mannheim ·
Photo: vladlen666
Identification
How to identify Common cuckoo
A medium-sized grey bird with a long tail, barred belly, and a two-note call. In Georgia it is a breeding migrant on the 2024 checklist, not a winter bird. The usual confusion is a sparrowhawk.
- 01
Length about 32–34 cm and wingspan about 55–60 cm at species level. Mass is often given around 110–130 g (males on average a little heavier than females). The body is slender, the tail long and graduated, the wings pointed. Adult males are slate-grey on the head, back, and breast, with a sharp change to black-and-white barring on the belly. The eye, eye-ring, bill base, and feet are yellow. Grey adult females are similar but often show a buff or pinkish wash on the breast and neck sides.
- 02
A rufous (“hepatic”) morph occurs in some adult females and more often in juveniles: reddish-brown upperparts with dark bars. Juveniles are more scaly or barred, often with a white nape patch and pale feather edges. Flight can look hawk-like. The call is the reliable field cue: males sing “cuck-oo”; sparrowhawks do not.
- 03
Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) is a year-round resident and migrant in Georgia on the 2024 checklist. It has broader, more rounded wings, a shorter barred tail, a hooked raptor bill, and a fierce yellow or orange eye; it does not sing “cuck-oo”. Levant sparrowhawk (Accipiter brevipes) is also a breeding migrant in Georgia; it is still a true hawk, not a cuckoo. Great spotted cuckoo (Clamator glandarius) is a casual visitor on the 2024 checklist (photographs); it is crested, sandy-brown with white spots, and is not grey and hawk-like. Oriental cuckoo (Cuculus optatus) is not on that checklist. This atlas does not yet have separate pages for those species.
- 04
It is not a threat to people. Leave it alone. A grey barred bird calling “cuck-oo” from a treetop in late spring in Georgia is this species, not a sparrowhawk.
Biology
Habitat, diet, behavior, and conservation
Habitat and range
In Georgia look for it in the breeding season and on passage, not in winter. This page does not colour a municipality-by-municipality map. The 2024 checklist confirms country-level breeding-migrant status but does not publish a regional gazetteer. Do not assume it occurs evenly across Georgia, including treeless high plateaus or dense closed forest. Species-level habitat is open and semi-open country: woodland edge, farmland with trees, river valleys, reedbeds, orchards, and similar edges where host songbirds nest. A separate national elevation band for Georgia is not published here. The atlas map is empty until named Georgian localities are compiled from sources that actually list them.
Diet
There is no separate Georgian diet study on this page. Across the range adults take insects, especially hairy caterpillars that many other birds avoid; other insects are taken. Eggs or nestlings of hosts may be eaten when a female visits a nest. That is species-level behaviour, not a measured Georgian menu.
Behavior
It is active by day and is often heard before it is seen. The male’s song is the two-note “cuck-oo”, usually given from an open perch. The female has a different, bubbling call. It does not build a nest. It is an obligate brood parasite: the female lays in the nests of other birds, often removing one host egg. Species-level literature records many host species (commonly pipits, reed warblers, dunnocks, and wagtails in Europe); a published host inventory for Georgia is not compiled on this page. Several of those host groups do breed in Georgia, but that is not the same as a local host list. The chick typically ejects remaining eggs or young. Incubation is short, about 11–13 days at species level; a female may lay many eggs in different nests over a season (handbook figures often fall around 9–22). Adults leave the breeding grounds earlier than the young. The 2024 checklist treats the species as a breeder and a migrant in Georgia, not as a winter visitor.
Conservation
BirdLife International assesses Cuculus canorus as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. The global range is huge; some European farmland populations have declined, including a well-documented decline in parts of the United Kingdom, but the global decline is not treated as fast enough for a higher threat category. It is not on Georgia’s 2014 Red List (Government Resolution No. 190). The 2024 Georgian bird checklist assigns global and national Red List category LC. A Georgia-specific population trend is not quantified on this page. The EU Birds Directive does not apply in Georgia. Do not catch or keep wild birds.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Short answers to the most important questions about Common cuckoo.
Yes. The 2024 annotated checklist of the birds of Georgia lists it as a confirmed breeding bird and migrant (BB; M). It is absent in the non-breeding season.
In the warmer months, in open and semi-open country with trees or reedbeds where small songbirds nest. This page has no named municipality list and does not colour the regional map. Presence is confirmed at country level, not mapped region by region here.
Slate-grey upperparts, barred belly, long tail, pointed wings, yellow eye-ring. Males sing a two-note “cuck-oo”. A sparrowhawk has a hooked bill, broader wings, and does not make that call.
About 32–34 cm long at species level, with a wingspan of about 55–60 cm. A separate measured series from Georgia is not given on this page.
Mainly insects, especially hairy caterpillars. Diet has not been studied separately in Georgia on this page.
As a breeding migrant: present in the breeding season and on passage, absent in winter, according to the 2024 checklist. Exact arrival and departure dates for Georgia are not tabulated on this page.
Yes. BB on the 2024 checklist means it is a confirmed breeder. It does not build its own nest; it lays in the nests of other birds. Which host species are used in Georgia has not been compiled here.
It is harmless. It is globally Least Concern and is coded LC nationally on the 2024 checklist. It is not on Georgia’s 2014 Red List. Do not catch wild birds.
- Budagashvili & Javakhishvili 2024 — The birds of Georgia (Sandgrouse 46)
- SABUKO — Bird checklist
- BirdLife DataZone — Common Cuckoo
- IUCN Red List — Cuculus canorus
- IOC World Bird List
- Avibase — Georgia bird checklist
- საქართველოს მთავრობის დადგენილება №190 (2014) — წითელი ნუსხა
- RSPB — Cuckoo
- BTO BirdFacts — Cuckoo
- Wikimedia Commons — Cuckoo, Thursley Common (Andy Morffew, CC BY 2.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — Kuckuck, Bösenbechhofen (Reinhold Möller, CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — Kempenbroek koekoek (Jac. Janssen, CC BY 2.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — Common cuckoo juvenile, Durankulak (TRinaud, CC BY 4.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — Junger Kuckuck, Mannheim (Andreas Eichler, CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — Cuckoo chick (vladlen666, CC0)
- xeno-canto XC654374 — Cuculus canorus (Stephen Barlow, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Species profiles are compiled from peer-reviewed literature and established biodiversity databases, and are reviewed as new taxonomic and conservation data become available.
Related guides
