I've been busy with birds and butterflies lately and neglecting real life stuff, so today it was time to hunker down and get some chores done. But then that darn WhatsApp when off. Javi Gonzalez and crew at the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center had found a Mangrove Cuckoo. Now I've seen Mangrove Cuckoos before in the Florida Keys and in Mexico but never in Texas. I remember looking for the one at Frontera Audubon in Weslaco many years ago. Then there was another long ago at Sabal Palm and Scarlet Collie found one in Port Isabel. That's three swings and three misses. Then more recently there was the one on inaccessible state property on the Arroyo Colorado and finally last year a late afternoon bird near Rio Hondo that I didn't chase and a very coopertive bird in Galveston that I should have chased. Mangrove Cuckoo has long been my #1 nemesis bird in Texas.
So after a brief discussion with myself about how vagrant Mangrove Cuckoos are notoriously difficult to refind and how I had stuff to do, I told myself to shut up and drove out to the Island. When I arrived at the SPI Birding Center, birders were already on the glorious Mangrove Cuckoo. My first shot was the classic cuckoo pose, eye ball peering through vegetation.
Mangrove Cuckoos belong to the genus Coccyzus along with our common Yellow-billed and Black-billed Cuckoos and the rare austral migrant Dark-billed Cuckoo. They have this distintive manner of sitting perfectly still with there head slowly moving around, surveying the situation, much like trogons do. And like our other cuckoos are big fans of caterpillars.
This Mangrove Cuckoo is from Mexico as evidenced by the rich buffy almost fulvous underparts. Most birders get their Mangrove Cuckoo in the Florida Keys where they are much more pale. Here's one I photographed on Key Largo.
This Mangrove Cucko is my 602nd species for Texas and 435th for Cameron County. And tomorrow night I have an appointment to score another ABA and Texas lifer. Stay tuned.
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