Coccyzus americanus
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~50%
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 |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow-billed Cuckoo sighting in Shenandoah National Park on a given day, based on 517 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 66th most-seen of the 186 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 50%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May and June
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow-billed Cuckoo in Shenandoah National Park on a given day, against under 5% in October to April, 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.
2nd of 31
Of the 31 parks where we can rate Yellow-billed Cuckoo sightings, Shenandoah National Park ranks 2nd at about 10%. The best odds are in Congaree National Park (United States, about 30%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Yellow-billed Cuckoo is recorded against all the birds logged in Shenandoah National Park (517 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.
