Cuckoo

The truth is that sometimes we Fosterites have to leave our glorious reveries and take out the garbage. Especially this time of year. The compost bucket fills quickly with corncobs, stem ends of green beans, onion skins. So this afternoon I walked over the brown, straggedly land formerly known as Lawn to get to the compost pit. Just as I was about to heave the orts, I saw a large bird with a very long tail perched on the pig garden fence. The back and head were a soft grayish brown; the breast was light buff. The wing feathers had spots of white scalloping the edges. The tail, curved beak and general shape told me this was a cuckoo, but I'd never seen one like this before. Unlike the yellow-billed cuckoo, this one was more slender and the beak was dark. The bird kept its beak parted, occasionally uttering a fantastic repetitive sound of a small wooden mallet beaten on a hollow log. And then it turned its head and I saw its large gleaming red eyes.

At this point I rushed into the house for binoculars and Sibley. The bird remained where it was and I got a good look. Yup, red eyes. Turns out it's a black-billed cuckoo. They are scarcer than the yellow-bills which I see and hear fairly frequently. The red eyes are really bare red skin around the eye, according to one of my bird books.

Cuckoos are numerous when there is an infestion of hairy caterpillars. The curved beak supposedly helps them capture their prey anywhere on a round limb.

Cuckoos are seldom are seen away from the cover of woodlands: the black-billed is even more retiring than the yellowbilled so I wonder why this one was in the open...and stayed there. So did I, mesmerized by the call and the red eyes. Eventually it flew a short direct flight to a nearby tree.

And I tossed the scraps.