We had a Yellow-billed Cuckoo this morning, which makes it a red letter day in my book. I don’t think it rained overnight – there’s about 3/10ths in the rain gauge from yesterday afternoon – but it started raining lightly around 8:30. About 9:00, something fell down from a Virginia Pine branch that overhangs the driveway. At least, I thought it was a leaf falling, until it flew back up into the tree. Then I realized it was a bird, but it was a bird I didn’t recognize. I kept watching until it flew to a higher branch, where I was able to get my binoculars on it. I saw that it was a medium-sized bird with a brown back and a white breast, but I still didn’t recognize it until I noticed the curved bill.
We’re supposed to be in their summer range, but I believe this is the first one I’ve seen this summer. They’re kind of quiet birds. They don’t move around much in the tree, and unless they’re calling or flying, you aren’t apt to notice them. If you’re close enough to them when they do fly, you’re apt to see their white tail spots flashing, and if you see them perched, you’re likely to notice the long tail.
I never had any luck trying to sneak up on them when they were singing their hard, knocking call. They would always see me and fly off before I could get close. That call drove me crazy for years, trying to identify it, until I was finally able to record it on my Blackberry. Then I emailed it to Giff Beaton, who identified it for me. It doesn’t really sound like a Black Forest cuckoo clock, but if you think about it, there is a reasonable similarity. But I never realized that during the years when it was driving me crazy. If there are two of them in a tree, talking to each other, it’s a much softer sound, and at times, they can sound almost like a dove.
Anyway, I like having them here, and they’re welcome to all the worms they can eat. They will even eat tent caterpillars, which is great. But I’m not too enthusiastic about their eating my katydids.
Here’s a good discussion with a photo from the Georgia DNR website:
https://georgiawildlife.com/Out%20My%20Backdoor%3A%20Yellow-billed%20Cuckoo