Re: Yellow-billed Cuckoo (DEAD) – Carmel Valley

Dear friends,

The Yellow-billed Cuckoo specimen is now safely in my freezer; I can prepare it tomorrow. Amazing that this is our second Yellow-billed Cuckoo specimen from San Diego County this year. The date is remarkably late; to the best of my knowledge the previous latest date for a Yellow-billed Cuckoo in San Diego County is only 23 August. In a search at www.vertnet.org I find only one later California specimen, one that struck a window in Arcata on 10 November 1963 and is now in the Museum of Southwestern Biology in Albuquerque. By this date in 2011, a Yellow-billed Cuckoo fitted with a geolocator along the Colorado River that summer was on its migration, passing through the Caribbean (https://archive.westernfieldornithologists.org/archive/V46/46(3)-p244-p255.pdf)

Why has the pace of Yellow-billed Cuckoo specimens surged? This is our fourth from southern California in the past four years. All have been window strikes.

Thanks very much to David Trissel for getting me this specimen so quickly.

Good birding,

Phil
Source: SanDiegoRegionBirding Latest Reports