Chasing the red-billed malkoha in Phuket's secondary growth

Few birds combine the bright curiosity of a malkoha with the skulking habits of a forest interior species, and the red-billed malkoha is a fine example. It is a slim, long-tailed cuckoo with a vivid red bill, a dark eye patch, and a pale grey belly, and it threads through the middle storey like a dancer. Spotting one in the field is a quiet, satisfying moment, and Phuket's recovering forests give the species room to keep doing what it does best.

The island's interior is no longer a wall of primary rainforest. Decades of rubber, tin, and pineapple cultivation stripped the slopes, and what is coming back is a thick, tangled matrix of secondary growth that stretches from the hills above the airport to small patches around the reservoirs. This regrowth, dominated by fast colonisers like Macaranga, is exactly the kind of edge habitat red-billed malkohas favour. A careful walk through it can produce an impressive list in a morning.

For Australian birders, the appeal is layered. Many species that winter in northern Australia breed in Southeast Asia, and several cuckoos tie the two regions together on a flyway through Indonesia. A trip to Phuket fits neatly into the southern winter, when the top end of the country is wet and most Australian twitchers are thinking about pelagics or the dry inland. Travelling from Brisbane, Melbourne, or Perth, a week in southern Thailand is reachable with a single stop in Kuala Lumpur or Singapore.

That is the context for the tours run by South Thailand Birding Tours, which is based on the island and led by Games, a licensed Thai guide with a calm, methodical approach. He works small groups, and the focus is on residents, migrants, and photographic opportunities rather than a fast tick-a-thon. Day trips are built around habitat, weather, and recent sightings, and a half-day around a fruiting fig can turn up more action than a long drive to a "guaranteed" stakeout.

The red-billed malkoha as a forest dweller

The red-billed malkoha is not a bird that flies across clearings for fun. It slips along horizontal branches inside cover, using its long tail as a counterbalance and its red bill to probe rolled leaves for hairy caterpillars. It is a brood parasite, but the local hosts are largely babblers and laughingthrushes, which is why malkohas often hang around noisy feeding flocks. A wave of bulbuls, white-eyes, and the occasional racket-tailed drongo will often flush a malkoha into a better view.

On Phuket, it is genuinely uncommon enough to be a target bird rather than background noise. The regrowth has not been standing long enough for the population to fully consolidate, so sightings still feel like small events. Australian birders familiar with the channel-billed cuckoo or the brush cuckoo will recognise the family traits but find the malkoha quieter, more deliberate, and far less aerial. The experience is more like waiting for a russet-tailed crake to step out of a Tasmanian reedbed.

Where Phuket's secondary growth actually sits

Most of the better birding patches lie away from the beach strip, and the trick is to think in terms of valleys, streams, and reservoir edges rather than hilltops. Around the Bang Pae and Khao Phra Thaeo area, the forest is older and moister, and the trail system passes through exactly the kind of regenerating edge where malkohas forage. Smaller patches near the main reservoirs hold mixed scrub, and the borders of reverted rubber plantations often carry the densest understorey.

The habitat is not pristine, and that is a feature, not a bug. Secondary growth shows how quickly tropical bird communities can reassemble, and on Phuket the recovery is measured in years rather than centuries. Some of the standing forest is just a couple of decades old, and the bird list in such places is often longer than in older, taller stands where the canopy has closed over. It rewards birders who are happy to slow down and scan the mid-storey at five metres rather than twenty.

Timing the trip around the Thai calendar

The cool dry season, from late November through February, is the comfortable window for walking. Temperatures sit in the mid-twenties, the trails are firm, and insect pressure is lower than the rest of the year. This is also when northern migrants, including several species Australian birders know well, are wintering in the same patches. Combining a malkoha target with a few cuckoos, drongos, and a chance at a Chinese goshawk gives the trip real shape.

The wet season, roughly May to October, brings more rain and more fruiting trees. Figs erupt in waves, and the birding can be spectacular around a known tree, but access is harder and leeches become part of the conversation. For most visiting birders, including anyone timing a trip from the southern hemisphere winter, the dry months are the safer bet.

Booking ahead matters more than many travellers realise. Reaching out through the tour enquiry page a few weeks before travel gives Games the room to plan around tides, fig crops, and recent sightings rather than slotting visitors into a generic itinerary. It also allows the guide to chase a recent report rather than rely on a fixed route.

Working a patch with a local guide

A typical morning starts before sunrise, with a slow walk into the forest as light builds. The first hour is for early risers: pittas calling from the slope, barbets setting up, and the occasional broadbill pair. The middle of the morning is when the secondary growth warms up and the malkohas become more active, and the guide will already have a sense of which edge looks promising.

Communication is simple and observational, with names called softly and directions pointed rather than shouted. There is a light touch on playback, used mostly to draw a brief response from a tricky species. Birders from Australian twitching circles, where a recorded call can empty a car park in seconds, will appreciate the more measured approach. It is a different birding culture, and one that suits the forest.

Field marks and calls to listen for

The red-billed malkoha is visually straightforward. The bill is a strong, slightly curved red that stands out at any angle. The head is dark grey with a bare patch of skin around the eye, the upperparts are glossy green-black, and the tail is long and graduated with white tips that show in a deep undulation. The belly is pale grey to buff, the legs are dark, and the size is similar to a small crow but slimmer.

The call is a low, throaty churring, often described as a series of soft tok notes rolling into a rattle. It carries surprisingly far on a still morning, and learning it in advance is the single most useful preparation. A malkoha calling from the opposite side of a valley is far easier to triangulate than one moving silently through cover.

Sharing the habitat with pittas and broadbills

Secondary growth on Phuket is shared with several species that Australian birders will recognise from northern Queensland or the Kimberley. The hooded pitta is a winter visitor that the local patches can hold in good numbers, and the black-and-red broadbill is a resident that rewards a slow scan of the mid-storey. Garnet pittas are scarcer, but the habitat is right for them, and the same gullies that hold a malkoha often hold a quiet pitta as well.

Other birds that share the same edge include the greater racquet-tailed drongo, the Asian fairy-bluebird, and several species of spiderhunter that come in to flower along the forest margin. For birders who want a closer look at one of the trickier residents, a useful ID primer on separating paradise flycatchers covers the key features in plain language. Seeing these in breeding plumage rather than as passage migrants is one of the quiet rewards of working a local patch with a guide who knows which fig is fruiting that week.

A morning that begins with a black-and-red broadbill at eye level and ends with a red-billed malkoha across a vine is a morning well spent, and it is the kind of sequence that builds over a week on the island. Repeat visits to the same patch, in different weather, give a sense of how the bird community shifts through the day, and that is the texture that turns a birding trip into a working memory.

Responsible birding in a recovering landscape

Walking slowly matters more than walking far. The understorey is fragile, and off-track wandering can damage seedlings that are decades away from forming real canopy. Staying on the existing trail network keeps impact low and lets the forest keep doing its slow work. This is standard practice for Australian birders used to club guidelines in places like the Mitchell River or Lamington, and the same discipline applies here.

Playback should be brief, quiet, and at low frequency. A good guide will keep the volume down and stop the moment a clear view is achieved. Flash photography in the dim interior can stress roosting species, and tripods in narrow trails block everyone behind, so a monopod or a beanbag works better. Booking through a local operator, paying fairly, and keeping groups small is the practical version of the conservation message that every Australian bird club also promotes.

The simplest way to put a red-billed malkoha on a Thai list is to plan a few days on the island with a licensed local guide, walk the same regenerating patch at different times, and learn the low throaty call before stepping on the trail. The bird will not always show, and the morning is still a good one if a hooded pitta appears instead, but the structure of the visit is what makes the sighting likely rather than lucky. Phuket's secondary growth is young and worth treating gently, and a careful approach there rewards the same patience that produces a swift parrot in the Australian woodlands.