Central America

Congratulations to Daniel Martínez for reporting a new species to the eBird Central American list: Dark-billed Cuckoo, from Río Indio in southeastern Nicaragua! This represents species number 1212 for eBird in Central America. Dark-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus melacoryphus) is found throughout tropical South America, and also occurs on the Galapagos Islands. It’s a long-distance austral migrant east of the Andes that has shown up on Clipperton Atoll off the west coast of Mexico (Aug 1958), Panama (Jan 1980, record not in eBird) and Texas (Feb 1986; Howell et al. 2014). Dark-billed Cuckoo is similar to the larger Mangrove Cuckoo, but the small bill is entirely dark, and the tail spots are smaller than in Mangrove Cuckoo. Note also the pearly gray border between the throat and the sides of the neck, not shown by Mangrove Cuckoo.

Austral migrants, i.e. migratory birds that breed in temperate South America and spend the non-breeding season in tropical South America, sometimes misorient during migration and fly north when they should be flying south (most likely to occur in southern hemisphere spring, i.e. September through November), or they overshoot when flying north to their non-breeding areas (most likely to occur in southern hemisphere fall, i.e. April through June). Species to look out for this time of year include White-faced Whistling-Duck, Large-billed Tern, Chilean Elaenia, and Crested Slaty Flycatcher—all these South American species have occurred as vagrants in North America.

References:

Howell, S. N. G., I Lewington & W. Russell. 2014. Rare Birds of North America. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford.