Resued Wisconsin Cuckoo Bird By Babs

Cool Facts

• Like the Black-billed Cuckoo, the young Yellow-billed Cuckoo develops incredibly quickly. The entire period from egg laying to fledgling leaving the nest lasts only 17 days. On day six or seven after hatching, the feathers of the young burst out of their sheaths, allowing the nestling to become fully feathered in two hours.
• Both parents build the nest, incubate the eggs, and brood the nestlings. They incubate and brood equally during the day, but the male takes the night shift. The male brings nest material every time he comes to the nest to take his turn. The female usually takes the offering and works it into the nest.
• Although the Yellow-billed Cuckoo usually raises its own young, occasionally it will lay its egg in the nest of another cuckoo, or even that of a different species. It has laid eggs in the nest of at least 11 different birds, most commonly in the nest of the Black-billed Cuckoo, American Robin, Gray Catbird, or Wood Thrush. The Yellow-billed Cuckoo may itself be the inadvertent host for an egg of a Black-billed Cuckoo or Brown-headed Cowbird.

The story is I discovered this bird in my garage last Sunday and couldn't coax him out of the rafters until exhaustion and the next day he couldn't muster enough energy to fly so I feed him some good old H2O and viola he flew away. I just didn't know there were cuckoo birds in Wisconsin (Australian song) and more so I didn't know how secretive they are. I went on line to Google "cuckoo bird sounds" AND now I know I had heard him but never saw him.
I simply amaze myself sometimes!