yellow-billed cuckoo – The Morning Porch/Patio

Monday May 09, 2016

Dave Bonta May 9, 2016

Over the roar of a tractor, a cuckoo’s soft call. I find a recording on my iPad to verify the species: yellow-billed. He responds at length.

Dave Bonta August 23, 2015

Trembling in the top of an oak where a squirrel gathers green acorns. Blurry shadows from a sun shining through cloud. A cuckoo’s soft call.

Dave Bonta June 20, 2015

A question mark butterfly on the railing next to my boots. A cuckoo’s soft call sounds like an answer to the incessant caws of a crow.

Dave Bonta May 17, 2015

Heard but not seen: a hummingbird skirmish. The mist thickens to drizzle, and right on cue a yellow-billed cuckoo—so-called rain crow—calls.

Dave Bonta August 21, 2013 1

Quarry roar, how I have not missed you! But from the other direction, out of the mist, the yellow-billed cuckoo’s soft call.

Dave Bonta August 11, 2012 1

Another quiet morning as the songbirds go through their annual molt. Cicada. Yellow-billed cuckoo. Last night’s rain glistens on the grass.

Dave Bonta July 22, 2012 1

Even in flight, the cuckoos skulk: two pairs of thin wings as fast and silent as a burglar’s gloves. A small red beetle circles the yard.

Dave Bonta July 4, 2012 2

The catbird emerges from the lilac, gray as ever, and begins to scold. The cuckoo, by contrast, sounds mechanical—almost ready for a clock.

Dave Bonta June 22, 2012 3

The penitential sound of a yellow-billed cuckoo. I glimpse a dragonfly out of the corner of an eye—an electric blue needle.

Dave Bonta August 2, 2011 2

First cicada of the day, easing in and trailing off as if mimicking the Doppler effect. A cuckoo’s faint call—never as far as it sounds.