Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus)

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A Field Guide to Eastern Birds. by Roger Tory Peterson.

Return to Eastern Cuckoos

Color Photograph: © by and courtesy of John Cassady

Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus)

Identification: Length from tip of bill to tip of tail 11 to 12 inches. Wings, back, and upper half of head brown. Lower half of head, underside of neck, break, and abdomen white. Bill gray but with large areas of yellow-orange, hooked at the tip, and curved slightly downward. Eye without a red ring. Underside of tail black with large, white, oval patches.

Similar Species:  The Black-billed Cuckoo is superficially similar. However its bill is entirely black without any yellow and it has a red ring around the eye. The underside of the tail is gray with narrow black and white bands.

Breeding Range (see map below): The Yellow-billed Cuckoo breeds throughout the eastern United States barely reaching southeastern Canada. Its breeding range extends throughout the Rocky Mountains and central California.

Overwintering Range:  This species overwinters in South America.

Habitat: The Yellow-billed Cuckoo is found in wet thickets and shrubs and bushes, copses of willows, old orchards, and overgrown pastures.

Food: Primarily insects with a particular taste for caterpillar larvae.

Behavior: Cuckoos, in genera, are fond of hiding in tangled undergrowth and are difficult to see. They spend most of their feeding time moving through shrubs and bushes gleaning caterpillars and other insects from the branches and leaves. The voice is a series of fast, harsh ka-ka-ka-ka notes.

Reproduction:  The clutch consists of 2 to 4 pale blue-green eggs. The eggs are laid in a poorly constructed nest of twigs. The nest is usually placed in a shrub or bushy sapling tree.