Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS

THE CUCKOOS

The Guira Cuckoo

(Guira guira) of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina is known from the other members of the subfamily by the slender bill and crest of long feathers. It is a rather handsome bird, about sixteen inches long, dark brown above, becoming rufous on the crest, white on the rump, and dull white below, with the feathers of the throat and breast marked with long, narrow shaft stripes.

The square tail is nine or ten inches long, the two middle feathers being dark brown, and the others three-colored, being buff at the base, dark glossy green in the middle, and white at the tips, and as it is spread out like a fan when the bird is flying, it”forms a conspicuous and beautiful object.”

A very complete account of this species is given by Mr. Hudson, from which it appears that in Buenos Ayres it is one of the few resident birds that suffer much from the cold, it being a common sight to see a dozen or twenty of them clustered together three or four deep on a horizontal branch of a tree sheltered from the wind, where they pass the night.”If the morning is fair,”he says,”the flock betakes itself to some large tree, on which the sun shines, to settle on the topmost twigs on the western side, each bird with its wings drooping and its back turned toward the sun. In this spiritless attitude they spend an hour or two warming their blood and drying the dew from their scant dress. . . .

With the return of warm weather this species becomes active, noisy, and the gayest of birds.”The nest, a large rough structure . of twigs and lined with green leaves, is placed usually in a thorny bush, and the I eggs, six or seven or exceptionally as many as fourteen in number, are an exquisite turquoise-blue, roughly reticulated or laced with a snow-white, soft, cal- ' careous substance which is easily removed or soiled. The young, however, are extremely ugly and the nest and themselves are soon in a very unclean and ill-smelling condition.

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