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A Convention of Cuckoos

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Subject: A Convention of Cuckoos
From: Katrina Knight <>
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:29:30 -0400
At 05:24 AM 04/27/2009 Goodfellow wrote:

Where are the Dry Tortugas? I saw a single Yellow-billed Cuckoo at Bentsen Park, McAllen, Texas, last week.

The Dry Tortugas are little sandy islands about 70 miles west of the end of the road in Key West, Florida in the US. They're one of my favorite places. You get there by boat (or sea plane). One island has an old fort on it and some trees. The fort has a fountain in it. That's pretty much the only fresh water for birds flying across the a large area of the Gulf of Mexico. As a result, there can be big fallouts of migrant birds in the spring. I helped lead birding trips there for a while and I too have seen large numbers of cuckoos (Yellow-billed and some Black-billed) there. They're not really flocks in the sense that the birds intended to join together though. They end up together because there's really no place else for them to go until conditions are right to head out across the Gulf again.

--
Katrina Knight

Reading, PA, USA

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