The cuckoos are slim, retiring birds, which often are not seen unless they fly from the thick leaves where they have been searching for caterpillars—their favorite food. The Yellow-billed Cuckoo’s very reddish wings serve to identify it at considerable distance. Its song is an unmusical series of kuks. No song is given which resembles the word “cuckoo,” our birds receiving their name merely from their relationship to the famed English bird.
Yellow-bulled Cuckoo
Black-billed Cuckoo
BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO
Coccyzus erythophthalmus (Wilson)
Other Name.—Rain-Crow.
Description.—Upperparts grayish brown, faintly glossed with greenish and bronze; outer tail-feathers narrowly and inconspicuously tipped with white; underparts white, somewhat grayish on throat and breast; bill black; eyes dark brown; eyelids red. Length: A little under 12 inches.
Range in Pennsylvania.—A summer resident from early May to latter September. I have found this species common in some of the northern counties where the Yellow-billed species was rare.
Nest.—A rather well-built platform of twigs, lined with leaves and a few grasses, usually but a few feet from the ground on a horizontal branch in a rather thick clump of saplings or in alders. Eggs: 2 to 5, glaucous green, somewhat like those of the Yellow-bill, but darker and smaller.
The Black-billed Cuckoo is fond of lowlands which are upgrown with young saplings, or of alders along streams. It is sometimes seen in orchards. The song of the Black-bill differs from that of the Yellow-bill in that the syllables are grouped, usually in threes. The song might be written kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk, cl-uck, cl-uck, cl-uck, kuk-kuk-kuk, kuk-kuk-kuk, kuk-kuk-kuk, kuk-kuk-kuk, the last syllables dying off gently. The Yellow-bill’s song is louder.
Like its slightly larger relative, the Black-bill is fond of caterpillars, and both are very valuable birds. They eat so many “woolly” caterpillars that their stomachs become lined with the spines from the bodies of their prey.
BELTED KINGFISHER
Streptoceryle alcyon alcyon (Linnæus)
Description.—Head large, with long bill and prominent crest; feet small and short; plumage firm and compact. Male: Head and crest blue-gray, the feathers with dark centers; two spots, one in front of, and one under eye, and collar about neck, white; back and band across breast blue-gray, the wings and tail considerably spotted with white; bill blackish; eyes dark brown. Female and young: Similar, but with sides and a broken band across lower breast bright reddish brown, noticeable in the field. Length: 13 inches.
Range in Pennsylvania.—A common and widely distributed summer resident from late March until the end of October; occasional in winter, when the streams are open. It does not occur along streams which have been polluted by mining refuse and other poisonous waste products.
Nest.—At the end of a 6-foot burrow in a bank, made of a few fish-bones and scales crudely scraped together. Eggs: Usually 7, glossy white. The burrow, while usually dug rather high on a bank, directly along the stream, is sometimes located at some distance from water. It is dug with the bill and feet.
