Cuckoo cast, crew and and questions

After eight exciting and hectic weeks, the field season is slowing down. One by one, the YBCUs are disappearing from our sites, and suspected and confirmed nests are either fledgling or being predated in the night. We now have only one restoration plot where our birds still appear to be actively breeding, so we shall soon turn our attention away from the tree tops, the playback surveys and the telemetry set, and put our assiduous minds to the task of vegetation surveys.

Before my brain makes a valiant effort to escape such boredom by oozing out my nose, I figured I may as well post pictures of all of the birds we caught and tracked, as well as bring up some lingering questions we have about them and their behavior.

1) Screech La Rue



Our first successful capture of the season, and the most productive source of telemetry data in terms of hours of study. We think he's still around, but we're not positive…

2) Long John



While one of our smallest cuckoos by wing measurements and weight, Long John earned his name with his impressive cloacal protuberance. Just goes to show, the "big hands, big feet, big-" theory doesn't always hold. Long John ended up being a helper at Screech's nest, attending and guarding the area, perhaps even incubating a few times. Three hypotheses are put forward to explain behavior in unmated birds:

1. Sloppy Seconds: After the mated female is confident her young will be taken care of by their father, she will often go start a second nest with someone else. Males that help out at the first nest are normally selected for such elopement
2. Mixed Paternity: While it was once believed that birds were shining exemplars of monogamy, genetic studies since the 1980s have shown that females know how to play there cards, mating with several males to get both the best genes and the best help for their brood. (I'll talk about this movement, the importance of women in biology, the male reciprocal and marital violence some other time–see Gowaty and Karlin 1984 and Alcock 2001 if you can't wait).
3. Mom's Basement: When suitable breeding habitat is extremely limited (i.e., when there are few or no unoccupied territories on which young birds can start their own families) recently fledged/yearling siblings, uncles and aunts will often hang around and help raise their relatives. While there is only a 50% or less genetic advantage to this strategy, it's better than none at all.

Based on past seasons where females have run off with the helper, we believe is that Hypothesis #1 is the most common explanation for helpers at Coccyzus americanus nests.

3) Lexie B. Day



"What does the 'B' stand for?" you ask.

Um…either "Birth" or "Beautiful"…not sure which. We caught her on Diane's Birthday, which was cool, but even more notable was that we caught her before it got intolerably muggy and buggy. As we were still in the phase of giving our cuckoos stripper names, I wanted to name her Lexie Surprise…but B. Day is trashy enough, I suppose. Anyway, the transmitter on Lexie led us to her nest, which had two beautiful blue-green eggs. Sadly, the nestlings died after hatching–our guess is heat stress on that one.

4) Myla Goldberg

"Myla Goldberg sets a steady hand upon her brow,
Myla Goldberg hangs a crooked foot all upside-down…"

Myla was arguably both our most interesting and aggravating bird. We couldn't believe how easily she was caught–within five minutes of our opening the mist net, we had her in hand. We even managed to catch her a second time when her transmitter fell off!

Now, I know what you're thinking: must've been one dumb bird to fall for the same trick twice, eh? I'm afraid we will have to save the avian intelligence debate for another day, but in Myla's defense, she was one lonely bird. Yellow-billed Cuckoos give a distinct "coo" call when they're available and in the mood for some action, and for the two weeks we radio tracked Myla, she must have cooed a thousand times. She would also fly a daily circuit through several restoration areas, calling endlessly as she travelled from on cottonwood stand to the next. Of course we followed her on this cycle, invariably ending up tangled in arrowweed in a horrible, hot mosquito-infested plot Diane dubbed "the Gates of Hell"–damn bird.

As far as we know, she never did meet anyone. She just put paper to pen to spell out "Eliza"…

5) Thelonius Footbiter



I don't think we need too much of an explanation for this name. Thelonius was also a pretty easy catch, and within two days of telemetry we were able to find where his recently fledged young! Due to their cryptic nature and the impenetrable manner that mesquite and tamarisk grow together, we were never able to see any of the little buggers, but we heard them call and saw Thelonius carry food to them.

To give you an idea of what a cuckoo in the net is like, here's a video of Shannon untangling our dear Footbiter as he screeches his displeasure:


6) Odyssa the Cunning and Sean Beanelope the Faithful


(I'm not sure how Shannon manages to look so beatific in this picture, but I like it. I also like that she's wearing a YBCU shirt)

These birds are notable for several reasons. Firstly, they are the first cuckoo double-catch we know of. Secondly, one of the birds flew screeching into the net–we've never the birds screech anywhere but in the hand. Lastly, one of the birds was banded at one of our study sites last year, representing the first restoration-born Yellow-billed Cuckoo on the Lower Colorado River to survive its migration to South America and return! For this reason, we initially named that cuckoo Odysseus the Cunning, and the other–its mate at the time–Penelope the faithful. However, we later began to suspect that we had their sexes wrong, so we re-named them Odyssa and Sean Beanelope (if you saw Troy, you get it). Sadly, Ody and Sean's nest was predated shortly before they were banded. Ody is still hanging around the restoration sight, but we haven't seen Sean for a while now.

7) Violet, Klaus and Sunny La Rue



You've already been introduced to these guys, but I'm afaid I have an unpleasant update on them. Screech's three nestlings, as far as we can tell, were all were eaten by an unknown fiend a few days before they were scheduled to fledge. Rest in peace, you spiny uglies. (I pause now to sniffle).


Well, that's it for our banded cast of characters. As for the research crew, here's a picture of Team Blythe + Vona Kuczynski (a big help from Team Yuma) + Lexie B. Day - myself:


(From left to right: Vona Kuczynski, Diane Tracy, Lexie B. Day, Lindsey Smith)

Props for help with banding and telemetry also go to Alex (Team Yuma) and Joe Hildreth (Team Havasu)…for whom I have no pictures. Sorry 'bout that.

Until next time, keep rocking out to that environmental beat…

Works Cited:

Alcock, J. 2001. The triumph of sociobiology. Oxford University Press.

Gowaty, P.A., and A.A. Karlin. 1984. Multiple maternity and paternity in single broods of apparently monogamous eastern bluebirds (Sialis sialis). Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology 15(2): 91-95.

To hear some cuckoo sounds, including the love-coo, check out:
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Yellow-billed_Cuckoo/sounds