Cuckoo Over Sighting
Posted by: Loren Coleman on July 8th, 2009
Biologist Dan Cooper had a unique sighting in California recently. He saw a Coccyzus americanus.
He had studied the yellow-billed cuckoo in Kern County in the 1990s. But no one had spotted the dove-like relative of the woodpecker in the San Gabriel Valley since 1952.
He looked up and saw the yellow beak and the long tail with white spots underneath.
“It’s the kind of thing you see and there is just no doubt about it,” he said. “He sat up in the top of the tree for like a minute. It’s like seeing an old friend.”
The rare sighting last week has set off biologists and birders around the area and has brought new attention to the Whittier Narrows, and specifically a 4-mile stretch of the Rio Hondo.
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While Cooper, who was raised in San Marino and now lives in Culver City, is unsure if the yellow-billed cuckoo lived near the river or was just passing through, the sighting reinforced his belief that long-gone animals are coming back to the San Gabriel Valley.
“Since the 1990s, we’ve seen a pretty dramatic return of these riparian species,” Cooper said.
More, see Whittier Daily News
- Similar Phenomena:
Excellent! I have never sighted a yellow billed cuckoo here in California myself, although back in the mid-20th century there were more common here, apparently. It’s exciting to think that they may be returning to places where they were previously found. The closest thing I have seen is a roadrunner, which is a relative. But maybe there is a yellow billed cuckoo sighting in my future.
Wait… so someone who actually did scientific research regarding the animal in question had a sighting of the animal, in an area it is not known to currently exist in?
Alrighty then, he’s got some knowledge of the bird – he studied this exact species, after all – so… I guess he saw it. Nice to hear that this species is making a comeback in the San Gabriel Valley.
I’m “cuckoo” for this!!! Hopefully more will be found.
This species is native where I live; hadn’t heard anything recently about its status, but I’ve only seen one in my life.
And it’s the kind of bird that, if I’d recognize one almost as soon as I got it in the binocs, this guy would too.
Now this is an example of something that we see all the time, but don’t put together the implications for crypto: somebody who knows what he’s looking at, has a reputation for knowing that, and whose word is taken for virtual proof.
The implication, of course, is that people tend to be pretty good witnesses. You might get variations in the reports; you might get guesstimates. Might not be a professional scientist. Fine. But when a lot of people with reputations as observers – including everyday normal drivers, say, who better be able to interpret what they see very very reliably – are seeing something and reporting it pretty consistently, you have, if not proof, then something that is worth searching on.
This story, all by itself, puts the lie to the notion that eyewitness testimony is bad evidence. That’s a subjective, case by case judgment – and applying it to all eyewitness testimony is BAD judgment.