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A Keulemans lithograph of a bronze-green shining cuckoo perched above a grey warbler's hanging nest, with a warbler chick peering out
Illustration: J. G. Keulemans, in Walter Lawry Buller, A History of the Birds of New Zealand (2nd ed., 1888) · Public domain
MigrantNot Threatened

Shining cuckoo

pīpīwharauroa · Chrysococcyx lucidus

Found wherever grey warblers breed. Follow the whistles from September.

Story

A summer migrant that spends the winter in the Solomon Islands and the Bismarck Archipelago off New Guinea. The New Zealand subspecies breeds only here, arriving in September or October.

Behaviour

Lays single eggs in grey warbler nests, mostly in November, and leaves the warblers to raise the chick. Small and green, it hides in foliage and is heard far more than seen: a string of rising whistles.

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

Sources