Burchell's Coucal

FORAGING & FOOD: Voracious predator; searches ground and vegetation for small animals. Hunts mice, stalking them like a cat; takes domestic chickens in same way. Nestlings taken from nests; also takes ad birds caught in mist nets, and will swallow prey along with sheathing net¹⁸. Small prey swallowed whole, larger prey broken into pieces or pulped by pecking; snails beaten against a stone. Attends fires to catch fleeing animals¹⁴. Eats grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, mantids, pentatomid bugs, beetles, moths, centipedes, woodlice, crabs, snails (incl alien Helix adspersa¹⁶), chameleons, lizards, small snakes, frogs and toads, mice (incl Striped Mouse Rhabdomys pumilio), young mole-rats, birds' eggs, nestling doves, sparrows and bishops, and ad doves, mousebirds, barbets, warblers, white-eyes and waxbills¹⁴. Occasionally eats fruit, incl Loquats Eriobotrya japonica and Buffalothorn Ziziphus mucronata¹⁴. Stomach contents incl female lampyrid beetle (glow-worm) and grasshoppers¹⁶; numerous insects and whole mouse in 1 stomach, 200 pentatomid nymphs and 2 beetles in another¹⁴.

Author:CJ Vernon & WRJ Dean