Lesser cuckoo

Lesser cuckoo
Song recorded in Japan
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1) [1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Cuculiformes
Family:	Cuculidae
Genus:	Cuculus
Species:	C. poliocephalus
Binomial name
Cuculus poliocephalus Latham, 1790

The lesser cuckoo (Cuculus poliocephalus) is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae.

It is native to East Asia and the Himalayas ; it winters to East Africa and Sri Lanka.

In culture

Lesser cuckoo on a 1971 Japanese stamp

In Japan, the bird is called hototogisu (ホトトギス/杜鵑) and frequently praised in senryu for its song.

It has been celebrated by numerous waka poets since the anthology Kokin wakashū (920). ^[2] Sei Shōnagon in her essay The Pillow Book (1002) mentions a trip she and other courtiers mounted on just to hear this bird, and it was expected of them that they would compose poetry on the occasion. ^[3] It is also the central image in poem 81 by Tokudaiji Sanesada in the anthology of 100 poems, the Hyakunin Isshu . ^[4]

The Japanese haiku magazine Hototogisu takes its name from the bird, ^[5] and the magazine's mastermind Masaoka Shiki's adopted pen name, Shiki ( 子規 ) also refers to the lesser cuckoo; ^[6] shiki corresponds to the Chinese zǐguī (子規), which is an alias for its standard name dùjuān (杜鵑). ^[7]

In Chinese, dùjuān is a generic name and the species' common name is xiāodùjuān (小 杜鵑). ^[7]

In Korean literature, the song of the lesser cuckoo represents the sound of sadness.^{[ citation needed ]}

References

1. BirdLife International (2016). "Cuculus poliocephalus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species . 2016 e.T22683889A93005868. doi: 10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22683889A93005868.en . Retrieved 13 November 2021.
2. Keene, Donald (1999), Travelers of a Hundred Ages, Columbia University Press, p. 429, ISBN   978-0-231-11437-0
3. Sei Shōnagon (1991), "65 It Was during the Abstinence of the Fifth Month", The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, translated by Ivan Morris, Columbia University Press, pp. 118–125, ISBN   978-0-231-07337-0
4. Porter, William N. (1979), "81 The Minister-of-the-Left of the Tokudai Temple", A Hundred Verses from Old Japan (The Hyakunin-isshu), Library of Alexandria, p. 81, ISBN   978-1-4655-7943-0
5. Higginson, William J. (1985). The Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku. Tokyo: Kodansha International (published 1989). p. 27. While editing Hototogisu ('cuckoo'), the magazine founded under Shiki's guidance, Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959) had devoted...
6. Sato, Hiroaki (2014), Japanese Women Poets: An Anthology: An Anthology, Routledge, p. 381, ISBN   978-1-317-46696-3
7. Zhongyao bieming sucha dacidian中药别名速查大辞典. 学苑出版社. 1997. p. 315. ISBN   978-7-5077-1023-6.(in Chinese)