Blue-headed Coucal (Centropus) [XC278211]
by Patrik \u00c5berg from Baro River, 3 km east of Gambela, Ethiopia (song)
Blue-headed Coucal (Centropus monachus) [XC294394]
by Lars Lachmann from Awassa, Sidama, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region, Ethiopia (song)
Subspecies
Possible intermediates occur between present species and Coppery-tailed Coucal (Centropus cupreicaudus), and their vocalizations are similar and on occasion treated as conspecific. Several additional subspecies described appear invalid: form "heuglini" with a blue (not violet) head, found along large permanent swamps in Sudan, appears to represent an immature plumage of fischeri. Subspecies, occidentalis, sometimes recognized for birds of Gabon, but probably indistinct from fischeri. Birds from Shaba in south-western Zaire, described as smaller subspecies verheyeni, in fact overlap in size with fischeri.
The following 3 subspecies are recognised:
fischeri Reichenow, 1887 - Ivory Coast and Ghana through southern Nigeria, southern Cameroon, Gabon, northern Angola and Zaire to southern Sudan, north-western Tanzania and highlands of Ethiopia and western Kenya.
monachus Rüppell, 1837 - Ethiopia to central Kenya.
occidentalis Neumann, 1908 - Guinea and Ivory Coast east to southern Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and northern Angola; populations of the western and southern Democratic Republic of the Congo variously attributed to occidentalis or to fisheri.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet