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Jamaican Lizard Cuckoo | Coccyzus vetula
Jamaicaanse hagedissenkoekoek | Cuco lagartero jamaicano
The Jamaican Lizard Cuckoo is the smallest of the four Antillean lizard cuckoos, long-tailed cuckoos with a long, almost straight bill that feed largely on lizards. It is found only in Jamaica, where it has a string of folk names, including Old Woman Bird, Ring Tail, Sawdering and Rain Bird. It occurs throughout the island, from the coast up into the mountains.
Voice
A rapid, low cak-cak-cak-ka-ka-ka-k-k that runs into a rattle. The call of Chestnut-bellied Cuckoo is similar, but starts slowly and is hoarser.
No recording with a suitable Creative Commons licence is available for this species yet.
Identification
38–40 cm, about half of it tail. The bill is long, straight and rather angular, with a black upper mandible and a paler lower mandible; bare red skin surrounds the eye. Forehead, crown to below the eye and nape are brown, the rest of the upperparts greyish. The primaries are rufous and show mainly in flight. The throat is whitish, the rest of the underparts rufous, paler towards the undertail coverts. The tail feathers are grey with broad white tips; the central pair has a black band before the tip. Juveniles have narrower tail feathers and pale tips to the secondaries.
Confusion species
Chestnut-bellied Cuckoo Coccyzus pluvialis is larger and heavier, with a heavy, decurved blackish bill, a pale grey breast, a dark rufous belly and a black tail with a purple gloss. Mangrove Cuckoo Coccyzus minor is smaller, with a black mask, a curved bill with a yellow lower mandible and buff underparts. Yellow-billed Cuckoo Coccyzus americanus is white below.
Habitat
Mainly lowland evergreen forest, but also dry deciduous forest, the forest of the limestone hills, open woodland and semi-arid country with scrub, from sea level to 1,200 m. It forages slowly, hopping and clambering through branches and vines. It eats mainly anoles and other lizards, as well as adult and larval insects, mice, nestlings and sometimes tree frogs; the young are fed mainly on lizards. The breeding season usually runs from March to August; both parents incubate and care for the young.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Only in Jamaica, throughout the island from sea level to about 1,200 m. The species does not occur outside Jamaica. The other lizard cuckoos live on Cuba and the Bahamas, on Hispaniola and on Puerto Rico.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In almost any forest in Jamaica, from dry coastal woodland to the moist hills of the interior and Cockpit Country. A bird working unhurriedly through a tree and now and then snatching a lizard from a branch often gives itself away by the movements of its long tail. The white throat and long, straight bill separate it from Chestnut-bellied Cuckoo.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The range is small and the population size is not known; numbers are believed to be decreasing. The species also occurs in secondary forest, dry forest and semi-open country.
Scientific name
Coccyzus vetula | (Linnaeus, 1758) (GBIF: Saurothera vetula)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Cuculus Vetula; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Coccyzus was introduced in 1816 by Vieillot. Coccyzus is Greek, from kokkuzō 'to cry cuckoo', after the cuckoo's call. vetula is Latin for 'little old woman', a diminutive from vetus 'old'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Jamaica.