Yellow-billed cuckoo Coccyzus americanus

Identification Tips:

• Length: 11 inches
• Sexes similar
• Slender, long-tailed bird
• Yellow orbital ring
• Cinnamon inner webs to primaries, often visible at rest
• Brown head, nape, back, and upperwings
• White chin, breast, and belly
• Brown uppertail has black outer tail feathers with white tips

Adult:

• Black bill with yellow basal half of lower mandible
• Tail feathers with extensive pale tips below

Juvenile:

• Tail feathers have significantly smaller pale tips below
• Occasionally with entirely black bill

Similar species:

Adult Black-billed Cuckoo has red orbital ring, black bill, smaller tail spots, and lacks cinnamon primaries. Juvenile Black-billed Cuckoo can be similar to juvenile Yellow-billed Cuckoo but never shares the cinnamon primaries of the Yellow-billed. Mangrove Cuckoo has black mask, buff breast, larger white tail spots below and lacks cinnamon primaries.

Length and wingspan from: Robbins, C.S., Bruun, B., Zim, H.S., (1966). Birds of North America. New York: Western Publishing Company, Inc.