Tweet of the Day

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Factual: Science & Nature

Discover birds through their songs and calls. 265 programmes of 90 seconds, over a year

Discover birds through their songs and calls. Each Tweet of the Day begins with a call or song, followed by a story of fascinating ornithology inspired by the sound.

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Tweet of the Day: Common Hawk Cuckoo

Common Hawk Cuckoo

BBC Radio 4 - Tweet of the Day, Common Hawk Cuckoo

Miranda Krestovnikoff presents the common hawk cuckoo from the Bengal region.

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
 
Miranda Krestovnikoff presents the common hawk cuckoo from the Bengal region. The repetitive call of the common hawk-cuckoo, otherwise known as the brain-fever bird, is one of the typical sounds of rural India and on into the foothills of the Himalayas. Its name partly derives from its call sounding like "brain fever" but also what one writer called its repetition being a "damnable iteration". It looks like a bird of prey, and flies like one too, imitating the flapping glide of a sparrowhawk in the region, known as the shikra, often accompanied by mobbing small birds. Unwittingly as they mob her, birds like babblers betray their nest, into which the cuckoo will lay her egg.

Producer : Andrew Dawes

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