Yellow-billed Cuckoo

All white in front with masked eyes and almost as large as a crow, the Yellow-billed Cuckoo has a long tail with stunning, bold black-and-white spots. I spotted this bird at Fort Macon State Park.

This is an elusive bird that’s more often heard than seen.

Although there was a pair of cuckoos, I never managed to photograph both of them together. The Roadrunner of the Southwestern desert is a close relative of the cuckoo.

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird, Or but a wandering voice?

William Wordsworth

Once the pair of cuckoos flew off, they were soon replaced by a similar pair of breeding adult birds.

These were Brown Thrashers, Toxostoma rufum. Although similar in size and shape to the cuckoo, they are not close relatives, but in the same family as mockingbirds and catbirds.

Like the Yellow-billed Cuckoo, the Brown Thrasher is rather secretive. It has the habit of foraging on the ground under bushes, then disappearing into the shrubs out of sight. Its rapid side-to-side foraging motions give it the name “thrasher.”

If you liked these birds, here are some similar bird posts to visit:

• Birds in the Old Burying Ground >>
• Birds sitting on gravestones >>
• Great-crested Flycatcher >>