Puerto Rican Lizard Cuckoo - long name, long bird!
By Charlie • May 7, 2009 • 6 comments
Photo left © Kevin Loughin, WildSide Nature Tours
Visitors to Puerto Rico have the opportunity to see two closely-related sharp-billed, beady-eyed cuckoos on their birding holidays: one, the Mangrove Cuckoo Coccyzus minor, is a fair bit easier to see on the island than in coastal southern Florida (as thankless hours spent searching for one while donating blood to the mosquitoes of the notorious Everglades Snake Bight Trail proved to me once); the other is the altogether more fierce-looking endemic Puerto Rican Lizard Cuckoo C. vieilloti (or Paraja Bobo Mayor as it’s called in Spanish).
As its name suggests this exotic bird’s diet consists primarily of lizards (according to Mark Oberle in his excellent ““Puerto Rico’s Bird in Photographs” about 3/4 of what the bird eats is lizards, supplemented by large insects and spiders), which it hunts by foraging slowly through the middle and upper stories of trees, vines and thickets.
Larger than the Mangrove Cuckoo by a full 10cm (and 20% heavier) the Puerto Rican Lizard Cuckoo is - thanks to its extravagant retrices - actually one of the largest of the main island’s terrestrial birds, and is common in thickets, forests, coffee plantations, the limestone hills of the Karst region, and is even seen in suburban neighbourhoods where there’s enough dense vegetation for it to creep around in (experienced Neotropical birders will have already noted the similarity in looks and habits with the widespread and equally furtive Squirrel Cuckoo Piaya cayana of Central and Southern America - which, incidentally in a reverse of the colour scheme of the Puerto Rican Lizard Cuckoo has a chestnut head and grey body).
Typical locations (again quoting Mark Oberle) are at the beginning of the Granados Trail in Guanica State Forest, form the trails at Guajataca and Vega State Forests, or around the parking-lot and entrance road to El Portal visitor centre in El Yunque [which appears to be one of the best sites on the island to find endemics].
Puerto Rican Lizard Cuckoo/Paraja Bobo Mayor Coccyzus vieilloti.
Photo © Alberto Lopez-Torres (see more of Alberto’s photos at puertoricanwildlifephotography.blogspot.com and www.flickr.com)
Mangrove Cuckoo/Pajaro Bobo Menor Coccyzus minor - note comparatively contrasting head pattern, smaller bill, and plainer eye. Photo © Kevin Loughin, WildSide Nature Tours
IBAs where the Puerto Rican Lizard Cuckoo has been recorded
Photo right © Alberto Lopez-Torres.
As well as being one of the largest land birds on Puerto Rico it’s also one of the loudest and its harsh call is instantly recognisable (according to local birders!). There’s an excellent .wav recording on the El Yunque National Forest website which backs that up: CLICK HERE to hear it.
Like so many of Puerto Rico’s endemic species, the Puerto Rican Lizard Cuckoo has closely-related endemic counterparts in other parts of the Caribbean: the Hispaniolan Lizard Cuckoo C. longirostris on Hispaniola; the Jamaican Lizard Cuckoo S. vetula on (of course) Jamaica; and the Great Lizard Cuckoo C. merlini on Cuba and some of the Bahama islands.
All four lizard cuckoos used to be included in their own genus, Saurothera, but were moved into Coccyzus (placing them alongside more familiar species like the Mangrove, Yellow-billed C. americanus and Black-billed C. erythropthalmus Cuckoos after genetic studies determined that they were very closely related (see eg Sorenson, M.D. and R.B. Payne. 2005. Molecular systematics: cuckoo phylogeny inferred from mitochondrial DNA sequences. Pp. 68-94 in R.B. Payne. Bird Families of the World: Cuckoos. Oxford University Press), and many birders familiar with any of those three species will recognise the kinship immediately.
Puerto Rican Lizard Cuckoo/Paraja Bobo Mayor Coccyzus vieilloti.
Photo © Alberto Lopez-Torres (see more of Alberto’s photos at puertoricanwildlifephotography.blogspot.com and www.flickr.com)
- Like to see what else we’ve posted for ‘Puerto Rico Month’? Just click http://10000birds.com/tag/puerto-rico-month
- If you live in Puerto Rico or have visited PR and would like to contribute photos or a guest post (return traffic to your blog/website should be good, folks) then please mail charlie10000birds AT gmail DOT com
How would you and a partner/friend like to win a 5 day ‘Endemic Dash’ around Puerto Rico with Kevin Loughlin’s WildSide Nature Tours?
You would? Read on…
Kevin (whose photographs of Puerto Rican Woodpecker and Green-throated Carib grace this post) has been organising trips to the Caribbean for many years and is generously offering two places on an Endemic Dash, one of his popular short trips around Puerto Rico on which participants will be taken to see as many of the island’s endemics as possible.
The Tour starts in San Juan - so you’ll need to get there (flights are frequent and cheap from many major US cities) - but all guiding fees, accommodations, ground 
transportation, and meals from dinner on day of arrival through breakfast on day of departure are included!
That would normally cost two people around 2500USD - enter and win and it’ll cost you just your passport fees, airport taxes, alcoholic beverages, laundry, phone calls or anything else of a purely personal nature! Which - if you go easy on the celebratory beers, wear the same socks for a few days, and keep short the gloating phone calls to your jealous mates back home - really won’t amount to very much at all…
We’ll be posting more info about this fantastic competition during Puerto Rico Month - yes, okay, not posting the questions now is our way of making sure you come back to visit us, but why would you want to miss some truly exceptional photographs of Puerto Rico’s endemics and some of the most up-to-date info on Puerto Rico’s biodiversity on the net anyway?
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It is interesting to note in the second photograph how those tail feathers really serve as camouflage. When fanned the white tips blend with the specks of light coming through the canopy. I hadn’t noticed that on cuckoos before.
That must provide a significant advantage for hunting lizards from above.
Oh boy, love those “tail shots”!! You really know how to get great photos, Charlie! Oh, and I love your dry sense of humor…”donating blood to the mosquitos”.
April: Hi. The photos are great aren’t they - and though I wish I could claim them as my own none of the Puerto Rico images are mine. I’ve been given permission to use them by a number of people and the Lizard Cuckoos with the “tail shots” were taken by Alberto Lopez-Torres(there are links to more of his great images under the photos) who lives on Puerto Rico. There are plenty more great photos to come through the rest of the month, by the way
John: That’s an interesting thought…I’m going to have to see if there any theories online because you have to wonder why such a pattern evolved…
[...] if such an opportunity to gaze in wonder at Puerto Rican Todies and Puerto Rican Lizard Cuckoos and maybe, just maybe the highly endangered Puerto Rican Parrot (as well as other incredible [...]
wonderful and very helpful information. I live in Puerto Rico and im currently working doing canopy forestal tours in the area of guaynabo. i just wantred to add that theres also a large population of lizard cuckoos in that area as well. in “La Marquesa” forest to be more precise. thats wht i was looking for a bit more info on this bird since all of my tourists appear facinated by its funny call. most people confuse this bird’s singing with that of a monkey’s. thank you and keep it up.
Thanks for the additional info (and kind comments) Jorge - much appreciated…hopefully one day I’ll get to hear the call myself!
Charlie