In mid August, 1991, I found a dead YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO on the beach below
my house at Herring Cove, 8-1/2 miles south of Ketchikan. After the local
experts had a chance to examine it, I sent it (frozen, in a small cooler)
to Dan Gibson at the U. of A. Museum in Fairbanks. It was a first state
record, of course. The skin is a permanent part of the museum collection.
(One of these days I'm going to have to go see it.) The bird was an adult
female. It had light to moderate fat and was in good physiscal condition.
Dan also noted that the bird had been "handled" by a predator. Sure enough,
a few weeks later I heard "the rest of the story" from my neighbor. They
saw the bird alive, being chased by their cat. They watched the cat kill
the bird. Then they threw the bird onto the beach. (One person's garbage
....)

Some people, of course, questioned whether the cuckoo got here on her own.
But there were a LOT of caterpillars that year (black ones) and I felt that
she must have been lured up the coast.

A few years later (I regret not having the reference on hand) a
YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO hit a window in Juneau and was found dead! I had the
opportunity to visit with Bob Armstrong (_Birds of Alaska_) last winter. He
told me there had been yet another strongly probable sighting (by a
reliable birder) of a live YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO below the Mendenhall
Glacier. So .... maybe these birds are such good skulkers, we're all
surrounded by them and don't know it!!




Sharron Huffman
Ketchikan, Alaska "Art is so absorbing. ... It is a sopper-upper."
-- Kurt Vonnegut