Scott had been taking pictures of a cuckoo bird sitting on a limb near its nest, and as he was walking home he noticed a crow flying overhead. He was able to snap a picture of the crow, and was surprised to find the crow had a young bird in its beak. Scott e-mailed the picture to me with the caption, “The crow flew over the cuckoo’s nest.” Now, Scott was not sure if the crow took the young bird out of the cuckoo’s nest or from another bird’s nest.
Songbirds are often seen flying after and pecking at a crow, in an effort to keep it away from a songbird’s nest.
In Pennsylvania, we have two cuckoos: the black-billed cuckoo and the yellow-billed cuckoo, with the black-billed being the most common species here in northern Pennsylvania. They belong to the Cuculidae family, which has 127 species including the roadrunner. The cuckoos are not classified as songbirds because of their different structure of having two toes pointed forward and two toes pointed backward. The name of cuckoo originally applied to the common cuckoo of Europe. The cuckoos are most noted for their “cuckoo” call from which the well known cuckoo clocks have been patterned after.
The black-billed cuckoo’s scientific name is Coccyzus erythropthalmus. The genus name comes from the Greek word kokkyzein, meaning to call cuckoo. The species name comes from two Greek words: eruthros meaning red and ophthalmic meaning the eye. The black-billed cuckoo has a red ring around its eye.
Both the yellow-billed and the black-billed are slender and fairly large birds, with rounded wings, long tails and down-curved bills. The yellow-billed has prominent white spots on the under side of its tail.
The black-billed cuckoos’ migration is done mostly at night. They will leave Pennsylvania in September to spend their winters in South America, and their return to Pennsylvania will be in May. The black-billed Cuckoo, which is on the 2014 State of the Birds Watch List Species, is most in danger of extinction without significant conservation action. This species is also listed as a high priority concern on the Audubon Watch List. Since caterpillars are the main prey of the black-billed cuckoos they can be susceptible to pesticide use.
The black-billed cuckoo’s nest is loosely built with twigs and lined with catkins, plant fibers, dry leaves and pine needles. The nest is generally built six feet off the ground amidst thick foliage of both deciduous and evergreen trees. Since this cuckoo is a late breeder, the young usually do not hatch until June when there is enough insect food available.
The female will lay two or three greenish-blue eggs, which will hatch within two weeks. Both the male and female take turns at incubating the eggs. The young will begin to fly at approximately three weeks after hatching.
The black-billed cuckoos have been observed laying eggs in nests of the yellow-billed cuckoos, yellow warblers, chipping sparrows, cardinals, gray catbirds and wood thrushes. Ornithologists speculate that cuckoos often become ready to lay eggs before their nests have been finished, which means they must quickly find places to deposit their eggs. The yellow-billed cuckoo also uses at least eleven different species as hosts, most frequently the robin, catbird and wood thrush.
The yellow-billed cuckoo is a more southern bird than the black-billed cuckoo; however, ranges do overlap. During the last 50 years the yellow-billed has expanded its breeding range northward into Pennsylvania, and today, the yellow-billed is more widespread, within the state than the black-billed cuckoo.
Both species of cuckoos eat great numbers of hairy caterpillars. In one study, 325 hairy caterpillars were found in the stomach of a yellow-billed cuckoo. The call of the yellow-billed cuckoo is not as musical as the black-billed cuckoo. The folk name of “rain crow” was given to the yellow-billed cuckoo because it was believed that this cuckoo began calling just before rain began.
It is hard to believe that these two birds are not related to our songbirds but are related to the roadrunner, whose scientific name means ground cuckoo. The roadrunner’s common name came from its habit of running ahead of horse-drawn vehicles.