Piaya cayana
Silhouette: Nicolas Huet le Jeune and Jean-Gabriel Prêtre (vectorized by T. Michael Keesey) · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~80% in a week >90%
The common squirrel cuckoo (Piaya cayana) is a large and active species of cuckoo found in wooded habitats from northwestern Mexico to northern Argentina and Uruguay, and on Trinidad. The species was formerly considered to be conspecific with the Mexican squirrel cuckoo (Piaya mexicana).
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the common squirrel cuckoo in the fourth volume of his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Cayenne, French Guiana. He used the French name Le coucou de Cayenne and the Latin name Cuculus cayanensis. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson in his Ornithologie. One of these was the common squirrel cuckoo. Linnaeus included a terse description, coined the binomial name Cuculus cayanus and cited Brisson's work. The common squirrel cuckoo is now placed with the Mexican squirrel cuckoo and the black-bellied cuckoo... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fortaleza | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 2 | Belo Horizonte | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 3 | São Paulo | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 4 | Goiânia | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 5 | San José | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 6 | Curitiba | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 7 | Campo Grande | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 8 | São Luís | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 9 | Campinas | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 10 | Natal | 🇧🇷 Brazil |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zoológico de Brasília | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 2 | Aviario Nacional de Colombia | 🇨🇴 Colombia |
Likely
About 40% of wildlife watchers report a Squirrel Cuckoo sighting in Ostional Wildlife Refuge on a given day, based on 293 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 13th most-seen of the 182 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 80%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February, June, August and October–December
In those months about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Squirrel Cuckoo in Ostional Wildlife Refuge on a given day, against about 30% in July, the lowest month.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Squirrel Cuckoo sightings with a recorded time, and nearly all of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
3rd of 76
Of the 76 parks where we can rate Squirrel Cuckoo sightings, Ostional Wildlife Refuge ranks 3rd at about 40%. The best odds are in Santa Rosa National Park (Costa Rica, about 50%) and Serra dos Órgãos National Park (Brazil, about 50%). All parks ranked.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Squirrel Cuckoo is recorded against all the birds logged in Ostional Wildlife Refuge (293 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.
