This Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus) came out of the mangroves along the Indian River Lagoon to temporarily warm up in the morning sun during a cold spell at Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge in Indian River County, Florida. This was a fleeting encounter in which only a handful of photographs were swiftly taken before the bird disappeared back into the thick mangroves. This is my one and only sighting of one of these birds so far. And here is an interesting fact about the bird from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: Yellow-Billed Cuckoos have a primal-sounding, croaking call that they often give in response to loud noises. Their tendency to call at the sound of thunder has led to their colloquial name, the “rain crow.”
Nice shoot, I love it. It’s a hart bird to find in my part of the country and to get it out in the open, a great find indeed 🙂