Long-tailed cuckoo

Mostly passing through. Listen for harsh screeches, even at night.

Story

It breeds only in New Zealand but winters across an 11,000 km arc of Pacific islands, from Palau to the Pitcairn group. It is now threatened, partly because yellowheads, one of its host species, have declined.

Behaviour

A hawk-like cuckoo with a tail as long as its body, often mobbed by small birds. It lays in whitehead, brown creeper and yellowhead nests, and eats cicadas, wētā, lizards and other birds' nestlings.

There’s more about this bird on Kawau in the island’s history.