Dark-billed Cuckoo
Coccyzus melacoryphus
Brownish above and buff bellow with a black bill, black bandit mask, and gray crown. The eyering is yellowish and the eyes dark. The tail is long and black with large white spots when seen from below. Found in woodlands, second growth, forest edges, plantations, riparian forests, and mangroves. The voice is a low, deep and descending “cowl-cowl-cowl.”
Identification
The dark-billed cuckoo is 25 to 28 cm (9.8 to 11.0 in) long, about half of which is the tail. Males weigh about 42 to 54 g (1.5 to 1.9 oz) and females about 50 to 66 g (1.8 to 2.3 oz). Males and females have the same plumage. They have a gray crown and nape and grayish brown upperparts. Their wings are a darker grayish brown with no rufous. The upper surface of their tail is brown; the underside of the central pair of feathers is brown with black tips, the next pair blackish with narrow white tips, and the rest black with wide white tips. Their face is gray with a wide black "mask" past the eye, which is surrounded by a narrow ring of citron yellow, olive yellow, or gray bare skin. Their underparts are pale buff with the breast somewhat darker than the rest; the sides of the breast and flanks are gray. Juveniles are similar to adults but duller, with a brown crown and nape, gray tips on the tail feathers, and sometimes rufous in the wings.
Taxonomy
The dark-billed cuckoo is monotypic.
- Scientific name
- Coccyzus melacoryphus
- Authority
- Vieillot, 1817
- Order
- Cuculiformes
- Family
- Cuculidae
- Genus
- Coccyzus
Range and habitat
The dark-billed cuckoo is found regularly throughout much of South America except in Chile, where it has occurred as a vagrant. It is also resident on the Galápagos Islands. In addition to Chile, it has occurred as a vagrant in Clipperton Island, Panama, Trinidad, the Falkland Islands, Grenada, Florida, and Texas. It inhabits a wide variety of landscapes including the interior and edges of tropical deciduous, gallery, and mature secondary forest plus mangroves. It is generally a bird of the lowlands below 950 m (3,100 ft) but has been documented as high as 3,600 m (11,800 ft).
- Migration
- Complete migrants
Behavior
The dark-billed cuckoo is a year-round resident in the Galápagos Islands and west of the Andes in Colombia, Ecuador, and maybe Peru. Those in southern Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina breed there and migrate north for the austral winter (March to October). Those breeding on the Venezuelan Llanos between May and October move south after nesting. The species is present in most of the Amazon basin only during the austral winter.<p>The dark-billed cuckoo's diet is almost entirely insects, both adult and larval.<p>The dark-billed cuckoo's nest is a flat platform made of sticks and placed in a tree or bush. In most of its range it lays two or three eggs but in Argentina the clutch is more commonly three to four and occasionally five. The eggs are greenish blue. Incubation begins with the first egg laid so hatching is asynchronous and the young differ in size.<p>The dark-billed cuckoo's song is variously described as "six to eight resonant, buzzy kazoo-like notes" and "a ventriloquial ga-ga-ga-go-go." Another vocalization is "a descending series of guttural notes" that may also be a song. It makes "a dry-sounding buzz...dddddrr" call.
Conservation
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
Buru Bush Warbler
Locustella disturbans
A sparrow-sized dark warbler with an often scruffy-looking, graduated tail. Has dark chestnut-brown upperparts, a whitish eyebrow, a distinct white throat, and dull grayish underparts. Formerly grouped with Buru Bush Warbler and Seram Bush Warbler under the name “Chestnut-backed Bush Warbler.” A secretive inhabitant of montane and foothill forest, often creeping around on or near the ground. Darker above and dingier below than Gray’s and Middendorff's Grasshopper-Warblers, and also has a clean-cut white throat; almost identical to Sulawesi and Seram Bush Warblers, but ranges do not overlap. Calls include a sharp metallic “chit” and a drawn-out, wavering buzzy note, “tzeeoooreee.” There is some variation in songs, which usually comprise three high-pitched buzzing notes, “tzeeee-tzeee-tzeee,” higher-pitched on the final note. Song includes a high, liquid-sounding “tzi-tzee”, as well as a longer, more repetitive “tzi-tzee, tzi-tzee, tzi-tzee.”
Blackcap Babbler
Turdoides reinwardtii
A mostly brownish babbler with a black head and a white eye. The underparts are pale in the west and become increasingly darker in the eastern part of the range. Found in moist woodland, dense savanna, scrub, gallery forest, forest edge, cultivated areas, and gardens. Almost always in groups, which feed by hopping across the ground. Similar in behavior, shape, size, and overall brown coloration to Brown Babbler, but easily separated by the black head and the lack of a contrastingly paler rump. Calls include a raspy babbling, nasal calls, and a dry clucking, all usually given by a whole group in chorus.
Belford's Melidectes
Melidectes belfordi
A large, common honeyeater of upper montane cloud forest. Body gray with white scaling on the back, olive wing feathers and buffy under the base of the tail. Black head with prominent white facial stripe from the base of the bill, pale blue eye ring and bare facial skin behind the eye with a small white line behind it. Similar to Cinnamon-browed and Yellow-browed Melidectes and it hybridizes with the latter. Belford’s however has blue facial skin, dark bill and lacks red wattles.
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