Episode 107: Yellow-Billed Cuckoo – Voice of the Wild

Yellow-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus). 

 

The mysterious bird with a polka-dot tail and a woodblock call. 

 

Voice of the Wild is a podcast about wildlife and the wild sounds they make. 

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The following Cornell Lab | Macaulay Library recordings were used in this episode: 

• Yellow-billed Cuckoo call by Terri Gallion (ML506906)
• Yellow-billed Cuckoo call by Wil Hershberger (ML506904)
• Black-billed Cuckoo call by Randolph Little (ML506913)

Sources and more: 

• Cornell’s All About Birds
• Audubon
• Field guide to hotspots and birds in Illinois by Colin Dobson
• Audubon videoguide to 505 birds of North America
• Peterson field guide to the birds (Fourth edition)
• Sibley Birds East

What is Voice of the Wild?

If you learn to listen for them, you will find wildlife everywhere. Voice of the Wild is a podcast about wildlife and the wild sounds they make. Tune in every Friday to learn a new bird song, frog call, or insect noise. Voice of the Wild is an AI-free podcast. Generative tools are not used to write, research, or edit any part of the show.

This is Brodie with Illinois Extension and I’m here with a new “voice of the wild”

Too often this mysterious bird goes unseen; obscured by the dense treetop foliage which provides for them a steady supply of caterpillars to eat. You’ll typically have to settle for just hearing their strange call and knowing they’re somewhere nearby, but if lucky, you might see their long polka-dot tail as they briefly traverse a canopy clearing. This is the yellow-billed cuckoo.

Though in the same taxonomic family as Europe’s common cuckoo, yellow billed cuckoos build a nest of their own; though they will very occasionally lay an egg or two in the nest of another bird. Their song can be mistaken for little else, sounding a little like they’re tapping on a wood block. Their rarer cousin, the black-billed cuckoo, can be close but has more of a croak. Here’s yellow billed cuckoo again

Thank you to the Macaulay library at the Cornell lab for today’s sound. Learn more about voice of the wild at go.illinois.edu/VOW