Gould remarked 'It may seem an act of supererogation to include a figure and account of this curious Cuckoo...since its native country is Africa...but anxious to make this work as perfect as possible...I have followed the example of my late friends Thompson and Yarrell and given it a place on the grounds of an undoubted wild example being captured in Ireland...near Clifden (sic), in the county of Galway, about Christmas 1943, and is now in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin. '

DISTRIBUTION: Breeds from Iberia and southern France discontinuously east to southwest Iran and south to South Africa. Winters Africa, mainly south of the Sahara. Rare vagrant to Britain; 26 records to 1985, all between March and October