Shining Bronze-Cuckoo Chrysococcyx lucidus Scientific name definitions

17 cm; 23 g, but up to 50 g before migration. Adult bronze-green above , tail green, face variably whitish (including lores); white below , barred greenish to bronze, throat white or narrowly barred; eye-ring grey, iris grey to brown, bill black, feet dark grey. Juvenile duller, inconspicuously barred on flanks, iris grey to pale brown. Races <em>layardi</em> and harterti smaller, former with face dark (dark extends below eye), female harterti rufous on throat.

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Editor's Note: Additional distribution information for this taxon can be found in the 'Subspecies' article above. In the future we will develop a range-wide distribution article.

Forest, woodland, scrub, mainly areas with more than 380 mm of rainfall; sea-level to 1000 m. In non-breeding range, occurs in secondary growth, forest edge, scrub, savanna, village gardens, Casuarina groves, and also forest canopy, occasionally mangroves and pine plantations; from sea-level to 1920 m on New Guinea, and to at least 1000 m on Bougainville.

Migrant and partial migrant. Nominate lucidus breeding in Australia and New Zealand is a long-distance migrant across seas to equatorial non-breeding grounds, mainly in New Guinea and the Solomon Is, where silent; observed on passage across Torres Strait. Occurs in Queensland at all seasons , moving N in autumn and S in spring. A few remain in SE Australia and Tasmania in austral winter. Island races layardi and harterti are resident.

Insects , mainly caterpillars  . Forages in tree and shrub canopy, also on ground. Joins mixed-species flocks of insectivorous resident passerines.

Series of upslurred whistled notes like those used to call a dog, “feee, feee, feee ...”; also a descending “pee-eer”.

Breeds Jul to early Dec in Queensland, Oct–Dec in Western Australia. Brood-parasitic: hosts in New Zealand, Grey Warbler (Gerygone igata); in Australia, thornbills (Acanthiza), fairy-wrens (Malurus) and robins (Petroica) known, hosts with both domed nests and open nests. Mutual feeding, apparently between mates, reported from New Caledonia (2 Okahisa, Y. and Sato, N. (2013). Mutual feeding by the shining cuckoo (Chrysococcyx lucidus layardi) in New Caledonia. Notornis. 60: 252–254. Close ). Eggs  unmarked bronze, in colour and pattern unlike that of any host in Australia (dark egg is hard to see in closed nest); 18 x 12 mm; incubation 13–16 days (longer dates are in New Zealand). Nestling in New Zealand with long white down, gape flange white; in Australia naked or nearly naked at hatching, skin pinkish orange to greenish grey, gape flange (SW Australia) yellow; evicts host's eggs and young; fledges in 18–20 days, cared for by foster parent for up to 5 weeks further.