Our last few days on the cuckoo project were surprisingly busy! We did another round of surveys near Yuma, AZ and found no cuckoos. Back in Blythe on one of our last mornings of work, Alex and I went out to track a cuckoo we put a transmitter on later in the season. Everyone took their turn tracking the cuckoo, but the cuckoo did not appear to have a nest. We checked on this cuckoo, and he wasn't doing anything of note, so we went to investigate a few roost sites from previous days that could have been nests. As we were about to step back into the cottonwoods, out over a farm field, we spotted a cuckoo carrying a huge bug! He flew into the woods with it, and we went in after it. There was no sign of the cuckoo, but a cuckoo carrying food is a sure sign that there is a nest or fledglings around! Oddly enough our transmittered bird appeared to have nothing to do with this bird. After searching awhile, we stepped back out onto the road in hopes to see another food carry. Within a few minutes, we did! This time we had a more specific location that the cuckoo went into. We headed for it, and heard a contact call, which meant some kind of exchange was happening, possibly a nest exchange! I went into to search, while Alex stayed on the road to tell me when the cuckoo was coming back. The cuckoo flew in three more times to the exact same spot that we heard the contact call! While I was in the cottonwoods in this area, Alex radioed to me, "He's coming back with food!" so I froze, and hoped I was near where the cuckoo was headed for. About 10 feet in front of me, I heard some leaves rustle followed by some low "kowlps." At this point I had the option to run in quickly and see what was happening, or sneak in slowly. I chose to sneak, but gave the cuckoo too much time to sneak back into the tree tops, hiding whatever it was he was doing. The cuckoo was silent, and I am sure he was watching me while I searched every tree for a nest. We never found one, but were sure there were fledglings high in the tree the cuckoo was feeding.
The next day, we returned with Shannon and Diane to attempt a capture on this mysterious bird! We did capture it, and in the net, also captured its food item, a huge green praying mantis! We had seen other cuckoo pairs feeding chicks praying mantis on our nest cams, so it was great to get one in the net with the cuckoo! Obviously he was still feeding a fledgling in the area. We banded him and let him go.
Last new bird captured of the season, #27!
YBCU tail feathers
YBCU and prey item, praying mantis
Release!
Unfortunately we had no transmitters left. We did follow a few contact calls and knocks throughout the morning, which were moving all over the place. We concluded that the pair did have fledglings, that were mobile, and constantly moving around, since the cuckoo wasn't using exactly the same area as the previous day.
The next day, we managed to capture TGB, one of the first cuckoos we caught early in the season. TGB successfully fledged chicks! We will miss everyone that we worked with on this project. We had a lot of fun and were able to take some great trips, and I got over 130 life birds!!!
TGB
Alex releasing TGB back into the willow stand
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