Jacobin Cuckoo has been sighted near the Manjira Wildlife Sanctuary

The Pied Crested Cuckoo (also called as Jacobin Cuckoo), considered widely as a harbinger of monsoon in India, has been sighted near the Manjira Wild Life Sanctuary in Sangareddy district last week. The bird was seen last Wednesday at Tallapally lake near Sangareddy town. Bird watchers believe that the rains are not far behind when the Jacobin Cuckoo is sighted. The black and white bird travels thousands of kilometers from South Africa and other African countries to reach India during May ahead of South West monsoon and returns to their home usually the following January.

While one sub-species of the bird travels ahead of the monsoon with its sighting usually means that the rains are likely to follow in a couple of weeks or so, two other sub-species of the bird are residents of India and are found in some parts of the Indian peninsula.

According to bird sightings recorded one-bird count, a global platform that collates the bird sightings, the arrival of monsoon coincides with the sighting of Pied Crested Cuckoo in Central and North India except in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Even some bird watchers have sighted the Pied Crest Cuckoo few times even during the dry months in Telangana during the recent years. Birders can visit Manjira, Ananthagiri Hills, Narsapur Forest Area, Pocharam Wild Life Sanctuary, Nallamalla Forest, Ameenpur, and Icrisat which are considered some of the best locations to see the monsoon migrant near Hyderabad during the rainy season and also before the monsoon sets in.