Tapera naevia
Silhouette: Nicolas Huet le Jeune and Jean-Gabriel Prêtre (vectorized by T. Michael Keesey) · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5%
The striped cuckoo (Tapera naevia) is a near-passerine bird, the only member of the genus Tapera. This resident cuckoo is found from Mexico and Trinidad south to Bolivia and Argentina and Colombia. The striped cuckoo is found in open country with trees or shrubs, and the edges of mangrove forests. It is among the very few brood parasitic cuckoos of the Americas (only other are Dromococcyx), and typical hosts are spinetails, but often also wrens, and other species with domed nests. The female cuckoo lays one, sometimes two, white or bluish eggs in the host's large stick nest. The eggs hatch in 15 days, with a further 18 days until the cuckoo fledges. The young spinetails disappear.
This species is about 27 cm (11 in) long and weighs 40 g (1.4 oz). The adult is mainly grey-brown above, streaked with black and buff. It has a pale supercilium and a chestnut and black crest which is raised as part of its display. The underparts are off-white and the tail is long and graduated. Immature birds are spotted with buff and are more rufous on the back and wings.
The striped cuckoo eats large insects (primarily grasshoppers and caterpillars), often taken off the ground. This is a solitary and fairly shy species which tends to keep to the cover of bushes, although it will sing from more open perches. It has a whistled call usually of two or three notes, wu-weee or wu-wu-wee, and can be attracted by imitations of this. Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Asuncion | 🇵🇾 Paraguay | |
| 2 | Santa Cruz de la Sierra | 🇧🇴 Bolivia | |
| 3 | Goiânia | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 4 | Cali | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 5 | Valencia | 🇻🇪 Venezuela | |
| 6 | Rio de Janeiro | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 7 | Campinas | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 8 | Niterói | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 9 | Curitiba | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 10 | Cordoba | 🇦🇷 Argentina |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Striped Cuckoo sighting in Buenos Aires on a given day, based on 48 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 218th most-seen of the 274 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, if each day is a fresh chance.
Any time of year
In every month with enough records, under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Striped Cuckoo in Buenos Aires on a given day, so our monthly data shows no clear season.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Striped Cuckoo sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
15th of 16
Of the 16 cities where we can rate Striped Cuckoo sightings, Buenos Aires ranks 15th at under 5%. The best odds are in Asuncion (Paraguay, about 10%), Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivia, about 10%) and Goiânia (Brazil, under 5%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Striped Cuckoo is recorded against all the birds logged in Buenos Aires (48 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
