CALIFOENIA CUCKOO 67 



COCCYZUS AMERICANUS OCCIDENTALIS Ridjway 



CALIFORNIA CUCKOO 



Plate 6 



HABITS 



This western race of our common yellow-billed cuckoo has been 

 separated on very slight average characters, hardly worthy of recog- 

 nition in nomenclature. I am inclined to agree with Harry S. 

 Swarth (1929), who says: 



Between the eastern and western races of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo there is 

 a slight average difference m size, the western bird being the larger and with 

 a somewhat heavier bill. There is a rather wide range of variation in specimens 

 from any one locality, * * * and the largest eastern birds do not fall far 

 short of the maximum measurements of western specimens. Birds from the 

 Pacific coast are the largest, those from central Arizona near the type locality 

 of occidentalis (the Santa Rita Mountains) are intermediate in size. The sub- 

 species would have a better claim to recognition if restricted to the Pacific 

 coast. * * * The subspecies is certainly as slightly differentiated as any 

 in our Check-list, and I feel that no violence to the facts would result from 

 suppression of the name. 



The California cuckoo is nowhere abundant but seems to be gen- 

 erally distributed, in suitable localities, throughout its range from 

 British Columbia to Lower California and other parts of Mexico. In 

 southern California, its favorite haunts seem to be the willow thickets 

 and groves along the beds of streams, or in willow-bottom sloughs, 

 such as the famous Nigger Slough, which formerly existed near Los 

 Angeles. Alfred C. Shelton (1911) describes a favorite haunt in 

 Sonoma County, Calif., as follows : "In the locality of which I write, 

 about five miles southeast of Sabastopol, this stream, known locally 

 as the 'Lagoon', becomes, after some winter storm, a turbulent river, 

 flooding acres upon acres of bottom land. In summer its course is 

 marked by a chain of long, rather narrow ponds, many of which 

 are deep. The banks, and much of the intervening space between 

 these ponds, are covered with a thick growth of willow, small ash 

 and scrub oak, while the whole is tangled together with an under- 

 growth of poison oak, wild blackberry and various creepers, forming, 

 as it were, an impenetrable jungle, hanging far out over the water." 



/Spring. — Mr. Shelton (1911) has this to say about the spring 

 movements of the California cuckoo: 



Of all migratory birds breeding in this vicinity, the Cuckoo is the last to 

 arrive in the spring, usually appearing during the latter part of May or the 

 first week of June. Upon its arrival, this bird keeps to the higher land, among 

 the oaks and other timber, for a period of two or three weeks before retiring 

 to the willow bottoms to breed. During this period it is wild and shy and 



