Coccyzus americanus
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5%
The yellow-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus) is a member of the cuckoo family. Common folk names for this bird in the southern United States are rain crow and storm crow. These likely refer to the bird's habit of calling on hot days, often presaging rain showers or thunderstorms. The genus name is from the Ancient Greek kokkuzo, which means to call like a common cuckoo, and americanus means "of America".
The yellow-billed cuckoo was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the other cuckoos in the genus Cuculus and coined the binomial name Cuculus americanus. Linnaeus based his description on the "Cuckow of Carolina" that had been described and illustrated in 1729–1732 by the English naturalist Mark Catesby in his The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. The yellow-billed cuckoo is now placed with 12 other species in the genus Coccyzus that was introduced in 1816 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot. The genus name is from the Ancient Greek kokkuzō meaning "to cry cuckoo". The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised. Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Austin | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | San Antonio | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 3 | Bogota | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 4 | Havana | 🇨🇺 Cuba | |
| 5 | Dallas | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 6 | Houston | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 7 | Orlando | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 8 | Washington | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 9 | Monterrey | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 10 | Miami | 🇺🇸 United States |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow-billed Cuckoo sighting in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on a given day, based on 70 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 192nd most-seen of the 279 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, if each day is a fresh chance.
October
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow-billed Cuckoo in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on a given day, against under 5% in November to September, the lowest months.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Yellow-billed 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.
23rd of 31
Of the 31 parks where we can rate Yellow-billed Cuckoo sightings, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge ranks 23rd at under 5%. The best odds are in Congaree National Park (United States, about 30%), Shenandoah National Park (United States, about 10%) and Cumbres de Monterrey National Park (Mexico, about 10%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Yellow-billed Cuckoo is recorded against all the birds logged in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (70 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), 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.
