All text from The Center for Biological Diversity
A relative of the Greater Roadrunner, the Yellow-billed cuckoo is also called the Raincrow or Stormcrow because its call heralds the coming of summer rains.
Its beauty and ability to eat enormous quantities of defoliating caterpillars, has made the Yellow-billed cuckoo a popular bird in North America.
The cuckoo is one of the last neotropical migrants to arrive in North America and has very little time to build a nest, find a mate, lay its eggs and raise its young. To do so, it has evolved a unique nesting strategy. It is able to time its egg laying with outbreaks of insects (especially caterpillars) so that it has a rich food source for itself and its young.
The yellow-billed cuckoo is at a critically low population level.
This cuckoo was found at Indiana Avenue and 15th Street in downtown Chicago and is now in the collection of The Field Museum
Leave a comment