Rainy Days and Rain Crows

Over the past two weeks, our area has received much-needed rain, and with it, the calls of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo have returned. These beautiful woodland birds make a knocking call both day and night in early summer, followed by a cooing song later in the season. They are among the few birds that eat hairy caterpillars, and finding tent caterpillars in a forest can lead you to these birds. They also enjoy a variety of fruits, other insects, spiders, and seeds. Outbreaks of webworms and cicadas can attract these birds to an area.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo eggs hatch asynchronously, meaning they are not laid simultaneously. Incubation starts with the first egg, which hatches first, often several days before the last egg. This results in a nest with cuckoos of varying ages. The young fledge within 17 days from the start of incubation, making it one of the shortest nesting cycles among birds.

Yellow-billed Cuckoos often produce a croaking sound in response to loud noises like thunder, earning them the nickname "rain crow".

John James Audubon noted, "At this season, they resort to the deepest shades of the forests, and intimate their presence by the frequent repetition of their dull and unmusical notes, which are not unlike those of the young bull-frog. These notes may be represented by the word cow, cow, repeated eight or ten times with increasing rapidity. In fact, from the resemblance of its notes to that word, this Cuckoo is named Cow-bird in nearly every part of the Union. The Dutch farmers of Pennsylvania know it better by the name of Rain Crow, and in Louisiana the French settlers call it Coucou."

Yellow-billed Cuckoos are long-distance migrants and winter in South America. Step outside on our next rainy day and listen for the rain crow calling.

"A shadow falls, a whispered call,

The Yellow-billed Cuckoo standing tall.

Through leafy maze, a secret kept,

A croaking song, where shadows slept.

A bill of gold, a slender grace,

A hidden bird in time & space.

It hunts the air, a silent flight,

A Summer's dream, bathed in warm light." Unknown

Yellow-billed Cuckoo