Guide to North American Birds

The most famous bird in the southwest, featured in folklore and cartoons, known by its long tail and expressive crest. The Roadrunner walks and runs on the ground, flying only when necessary. It can run 15 miles per hour, probably with much faster spurts when chasing a fast-running lizard or other prey. Its prowess as a rattlesnake fighter has been much exaggerated, but it does eat a remarkable variety of smaller creatures.

Sometimes common but usually hard to observe, the Yellow-billed Cuckoo inhabits dense leafy groves and thickets during the summer. Its stuttering, croaking calls, audible at a great distance, are often heard on hot, humid afternoons; people sometimes call this bird the 'rain crow,' imagining that it is calling for rain.

This is the famous bird of Europe whose voice is imitated by cuckoo clocks (and whose call, coo-coo, gave the name to the entire cuckoo family). It is well known as a brood parasite: females lay their eggs in the nests of smaller birds, and their hapless 'hosts' raise only young cuckoos. A common migratory bird across most of Europe and Asia, it regularly strays to the western Alaskan islands in late spring and early summer.

Slipping furtively through leafy thickets, this slim, long-tailed bird is heard more often than seen. It seems even more elusive than the Yellow-billed Cuckoo, and is generally seen less often during migration, although the Black-billed is the more common nesting bird toward the north.

Birders who seek the Mangrove Cuckoo in Florida may have to contend with heat, humidity, mosquitoes, and long hours of searching. This bird is a shy denizen of dense mangrove swamps, living in impenetrable tangles, where its presence is often betrayed only by its throaty calls.

These ungainly cuckoos are sociable at all seasons, feeding in flocks on the ground in south Texas pastures. When resting, several may sit hunched side by side on the same branch. Sometimes members of a flock will perch in the sun with their wings spread out as if to dry.

John James Audubon and other early naturalists failed to find the Smooth-billed Ani in Florida, but it became a regular nesting bird there during the 1930s and was fairly common for several decades. Recently it has become very scarce again and may disappear from Florida.