Yellow-billed Cuckoo Sounds

Overview
ID info
Life History
Maps
Sounds

Song
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Florida, June 09, 1962Recorded by James Kimball / Macaulay Library
Song
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New York, June 16, 2018Recorded by Marcy Ashley-Selleck / Macaulay Library
Calls
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Maryland, July 12, 1998Recorded by Wil Hershberger / Macaulay Library
Calls
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West Virginia, May 14, 2015Recorded by Wil Hershberger / Macaulay Library
Calls
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Kansas, August 08, 1984Recorded by Gregory Budney / Macaulay Library
Calls
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Florida, April 21, 2018Recorded by David McQuade / Macaulay Library
Calls
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New York, June 05, 2020Recorded by Jay McGowan / Macaulay Library
Flight calls
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Mississippi, April 21, 2017Recorded by Strawberry Plain Audubon Center NFC Station / Macaulay Library

Sounds provided by Macaulay Library.
Listen to more sounds of this species from the ML archive.

Songs

Males and females also make a soft, repeated cooing: unmated males give this song to attract females, and females coo during courtship.

Calls

Male Yellow-Billed Cuckoos make a distinctive series of hollow, wooden-sounding ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-kow-kow-kowlp-kowlp-kowlp-kowlp syllables. The whole series is quite slow and gets slower toward the end; calls can last up to about 8 seconds. Both members of nesting pairs give a metallic, rattling call, and a series of kow-kow-kow notes that sounds like a metal door knocker hitting a strike plate.