Senegal Coucal

A funny large cuckoo, the Senegal Coucal, 36 to 42 cm, a curved black beak, red ocular circles surround the black pupil and give it almost a stern look; the head and neck are black with shiny reflections and the separation from the brown-russet mantle is quite distinct, this brown-russet shade slightly tinting the tip of the remiges. The tail is long and black. The bird has a creamy white color on the throat, chest and belly, sometimes shaded with reddish reflections on the sides of the belly and abdomen; when the bird agrees, it will show whitish undertail feathers, horizontally striped with fine grey striae. The legs have black tarses extended by long claws. The female is barely bigger than the male, in fact there is no dimorphism; the young ones have a uniform striped horizontally with dark brown lines on the back, mantle, wings, remiges and tail. The cap is also striped and very thin white streaks can be distinguished on this as well as on the neck, these fine stripes will disappear when the bird grows up. A black-bellied form, called epomidis can be found on the Nigerian coast and in Ghana without being qualified as a separate race or subspecies, and still related to Centropus senegalensis.