Yellow-billed Cuckoo
It’s been a long, hot summer here, part of a long, difficult year. Early September has come to us like a sudden dream, with cool mornings and mild sunny days. I’m afraid to trust its promise.
This morning began wonderfully cool – around 58 degrees when I first stepped outside, and sunny and bright. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were already coming and going from the feeder, twittering, humming, and dueling in fast swoops and dives, hovering outside the screens to look inside and checking out red flowers on the deck, and somehow managing to come for quiet moments of sipping nectar now and then.
Carolina Wrens sang bright songs and trilled responses. A Pine Warbler sang its gentler, lyrical trill from trees and dense vegetation on the edge of our yard. A Brown-headed Nuthatch or two called in their squeaky, cheerful-sounding way from the pines, just briefly. A Downy Woodpecker whinnied its shimmering rattle. A Red-eyed Vireo called in a harsh, whining way from a hidden spot in some oaks. A Tufted Titmouse sang peter-peter from not far away, and Carolina Chickadees chattered quietly.
By the time I got outside for a late-morning walk, the day had heated up quickly under a faded-blue, cloudless sky – and almost every bird around seemed to have taken refuge and fallen quiet, except for an abundance of Blue Jays and American Crows, and a couple of Turkey Vultures circling low, making shadows that swept across the grass and road.
When a long-tailed bird flew across the road not far ahead of me, stopping in the lower branches of a pecan tree, I stopped to check it out and was surprised and happy to see a sleek, elegant bird as exotic in appearance as its name – a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, a slender, long bird with a smooth taupe-brown back and crown, cream-white breast and belly, and the down-curved yellow bill. The tail was long and, seen from below, black with big dramatic white spots. Touches of cinnamon color showed in the wings. It’s one of our most impressive summer birds, and one of the least-often seen because it spends most of its time high up in the canopy of hardwood trees. Its distinctive, percussive calls, however, can quite often be heard throughout the summer months.
A Yellow-billed Cuckoo is not a fluttery bird. It takes its time, moving deliberately, almost royally, along and through branches and leaves as it searches for insects and other food – especially for caterpillars, a favorite. I watched it for several minutes as it hunted, moving from spot to spot, but not leaving this tree. It sat in a rather hunched posture over a branch, and then made a quick plunge back into the leaves – and turned back around with a long dark wiggling caterpillar in its bill. It shook the caterpillar several times, then worked it into its bill to eat.
After several charmed minutes, an especially loud truck came by and the Cuckoo disappeared, flying toward other trees further away from the road. But I’d had a wonderful time watching it! A brief, enchanted window into a world we so seldom see.
There is some concern about the future of Yellow-billed Cuckoos because populations have declined by more than 30 percent over the past 50 years. Loss of the woodland habitat they need, with streams or other water nearby, is one of the main reasons for the decline, and efforts to protect or restore this kind of habitat could be helpful.