Cuckoos (Cuculidae)

Great Spotted Cuckoo (Clamator glandarius) - HBW 4, p. 548

French: Coucou geai German: Häherkuckuck Spanish: Críalo Europeo

Taxonomy: Cuculus glandarius Linnaeus, 1758, northern Africa and southern Europe = Gibraltar.
A smaller race, choragium, has been described from S Africa, but breeding birds there overlap considerably in size with breeding birds in Mediterranean zone, and are not distinguishable. Monotypic.

Distribution: Iberian Peninsula, S France and W Italy; Turkey and Cyprus E to N Iraq and W Iran, and S through Middle East to Egypt; also sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal and Liberia E to Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, N Somalia and Kenya, and S to Tanzania, Angola and South Africa. Virtually all populations winter in Africa; regular in small numbers in S Spain.