Appearance
12 inches. A jay-sized bird with a down-curved bill that is black above and yellow below. The tail is long with 3 pairs of large white ovals on the underside. When it is in flight, the wings are seen to be reddish-brown on the outer half. It is brown above with a white underside. A dark mask is over the eye.
Food
The yellow-billed cuckoo eats mainly hairy caterpillers, such as tent or gypsy caterpillers, but will also eat cicadas, beetles, beries, frogs and lizards.
Habits and Breeding
The yellow-billed cuckoo is a shy bird that mostly stays in the canopy of the forest or in the undergrowth. It prefers moist thickets, willows or overgrown pastures. | 
Yellow-Billed Cuckoo |
They lay 1-5 pale bluish-green eggs in a platform nest made of twigs lined with leaves, grass or moss. Usually the nest is placed on a horizontal limb 3-20 feet above the ground. Sometimes the female yellow-billed will lay her eggs in the nest of a black cuckoo. The 9-14 day incubation is done mostly by the female. The chicks fledge in about 2 weeks.
Birds of North America, Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Western Region, Book of North American Birds, and National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Eastern Region.
Appearance
10 ½ - 11 ½ inches. Similar to the Yellow-billed Cuckoo, but does not have the rusty-brown wings. The bill is dark and only the tips of the tail feathers are marked with black and white. There is a narrow red eye ring.
Food
The Black Cuckoo eats the same things as the Yellow-billed but also eats spiders, small mollusks and fishes.
Habits and Breeding
Prefers stream-side woods and moist thickets in overgrown pastures and orchards.
The nest is a platform of twigs lined with grasses and roots placed low in a tree or bush and near the trunk. The 2-4 eggs are blue-green in color and both parents incubate them for 10-13 days. The young leave the nest in 9-14 days. If food is abundant, the Black Cuckoo will sometimes lay eggs in the nests of other species.
Birds of North America, Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Western Region, and National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Eastern Region.
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