I hear yellow-billed cuckoos more than I see them. They like the edge of the forest — where the undergrowth is thickest. They are often hard to see in the dense brush, though their call is unmistakable and loud.
I stop working in the garden to listen to that crazy call.
It’s finally dawning on me that I haven’t seen any tent caterpillars since the cuckoos moved into the neighborhood.
The larval stages of moths in genus Malcosoma build silk tents in trees in the spring. They eat a lot of foliage, and an infested tree looks battered.
It was a mystery to me why songbirds don’t eat the caterpillars. Songbirds need protein when they are producing eggs and feeding babies. Insects are full of protein. But most birds leave tent caterpillars alone.
The problem is that tent caterpillars are hairy — and the spiky hairs interfere with a bird’s digestive system. Eating a tent caterpillar must be like eating a handful of cactus spines.
The yellow-billed cuckoo, Coccyzus americanus, has adapted. The hairs or spikes of the caterpillar stick in the bird’s stomach lining. But the bird occasionally casts off the lining — a bit like an owl regurgitating a pellet.
The yellow-billed cuckoo can eat tent caterpillars like popcorn.
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