Black-billed Cuckoo
Black-billed Cuckoo: Medium cuckoo with brown upperparts, white underparts. Eye-ring is red and decurved bill is black. Tail is long with faint white, dark-eyed spots underneath. Feeds primarily on caterpillars, also eats insects, small fish, mollusks and fruits. Makes low flights of short duration.
● Song:
"cu-cu-cu or cu-cu-cu-cu"
● Foraging & Feeding:
Black-billed Cuckoo: Feeds primarily on insects, particularly caterpillars.
● Breeding & nesting:
Black-billed Cuckoo: Two to five darkly marked, blue-green eggs are laid in a flimsy, shallow nest made of twigs, lined with grass and plant down, and built within a few feet of the ground in a dense thicket. Incubation ranges from 10 to 14 days and is carried out by both parents.
● Similar species:
Black-billed Cuckoo: Adult Yellow-billed Cuckoo has yellow-based bill and cinnamon-brown primaries in all plumages, and larger white, "eyeless” tail spots below. Juvenile Yellow-billed Cuckoo can be black-billed but has pale white, "eyeless” tail spots below tail. Mangrove Cuckoo has yellow-based bill, black mask, buff breast, and larger, "eyeless” white tail spots below.