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Purple-rumped Sunbird Documented as a New Host of Common Hawk-Cuckoo

Common hawk-cuckoo perched on a branch
Research · Reproduction & development

Purple-rumped sunbird (Leptocoma zeylonica) has been documented as a previously unreported host of common hawk-cuckoo (Hierococcyx varius). A short communication published on 28 May 2026 describes both a male and a female sunbird feeding a common hawk-cuckoo hatchling in Solapur, Maharashtra, India.

The observation was made on 4 August 2022 at Damani Nagar in Solapur. The authors photographed both adult sunbirds bringing food to the young cuckoo, providing direct evidence that the host pair was feeding and caring for the parasitic chick.

A new addition to the known host list

Common hawk-cuckoos are brood parasites: females lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, which then incubate the egg and feed the cuckoo chick. The authors note that four host species had previously been reported for common hawk-cuckoo in the South Asian literature they reviewed, but purple-rumped sunbird had not been listed among them.

The new observation therefore adds another documented host relationship for the species. It also extends the known range of host types used by common hawk-cuckoo beyond the previously reported records summarised by the authors.

The same sunbird species reared another cuckoo

The paper also reports a separate observation from August 2025 in which a male purple-rumped sunbird fed a young grey-bellied cuckoo (Cacomantis passerinus) at Hipparga Lake near Solapur. Together, the two records show the same sunbird species successfully caring for young of two brood-parasitic cuckoo species.

Sources and image credit

  1. Vanjari, R. S., & Vanjari, R. S. (2026). Notes on avian brood parasitism from Solapur, India. Records of the Zoological Survey of India, 126(2), 207–209. https://doi.org/10.26515/rzsi/v126/i2/2026/173077Primary short communication published in 2026. On 4 August 2022, male and female purple-rumped sunbirds were photographed feeding a common hawk-cuckoo hatchling at Damani Nagar, Solapur; the authors report this as a previously undocumented host relationship. A separate August 2025 observation recorded a male purple-rumped sunbird feeding a young grey-bellied cuckoo.

Image: Tisha Mukherjee / Wikimedia Commons — common hawk-cuckoo photographed 21 January 2024; representative species image, not the chick from the Solapur observation · CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ · Source

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