This is Brodie with Illinois Extension and I’m here with a new “voice of the wild”

Too often this mysterious bird goes unseen; obscured by the dense treetop foliage which provides for them a steady supply of caterpillars to eat. You’ll typically have to settle for just hearing their strange call and knowing they’re somewhere nearby, but if lucky, you might see their long polka-dot tail as they briefly traverse a canopy clearing. This is the yellow-billed cuckoo.

Though in the same taxonomic family as Europe’s common cuckoo, yellow billed cuckoos build a nest of their own; though they will very occasionally lay an egg or two in the nest of another bird. Their song can be mistaken for little else, sounding a little like they’re tapping on a wood block. Their rarer cousin, the black-billed cuckoo, can be close but has more of a croak. Here’s yellow billed cuckoo again

Thank you to the Macaulay library at the Cornell lab for today’s sound. Learn more about voice of the wild at go.illinois.edu/VOW