The Yellow-Billed Cuckoo

Sadly, this beautiful creature ran into our window. I am not happy about posting this photo, but I do want to talk about the remarkable thing I learned as a result.

Although I am not an expert birder, I know my backyard birds well—the cardinals, chickadees, tufted titmice, various finches, etc. But this bird. . . I had no idea what it was. Its long, spotted tail was striking. I hadn’t seen anything like it before.

Two of my go-to bird identification guides are The Sibley Guide To Birds by David Allen Sibley and Birds of Texas by Keith A. Arnold and Gregory Kennedy. 

Neither one seemed to help. It had a tail similar to a flycatcher. Yet, I couldn’t find a flycatcher with the cinnamon colored wings, the spotted tail, and the yellow beak. Eventually, I turned to The Cornell Lab and their on-line guide: It was a yellow-billed cuckoo.

​The next thing I did was to listen to its call on the website. I couldn’t believe it! I had heard that sound before, and I thought it was a frog. It sounded like a high pitched bull frog. In fact, cuckoos are often called rain crows or storm crows. Just as I look forward to the cenizo or Texas sage shrub, whose lavender, tubular flowers seem to explode before the rain, I will now be on the lookout for the cuckoos, too. Rain is such a gift to prairies in the summer, awakening a hidden world.

I also learned that cuckoos are secretive birds that feed on hairy caterpillars and cicadas, both of which inhabit our yard in large numbers. They prefer tall grasses, too. It looks like another win for the backyard experiment! Now all we need are a few stickers to alert the birds to our windows.

Books and Other Resources:
The Sibley Guide To Birds by David Allen Sibley
Birds of Texas by Keith A. Arnold and Gregory Kennedy
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology: www.allaboutbirds.org or the Merlin Bird ID app