It’s raining, at last. I do believe we’ve been almost a month without what my horticulturist friend Don Hastings calls “significant rainfall.” By week’s end, though, the rain gauge should have something to report.

So now, with the leaves dripping and dry ground drinking, I’m listening for the call of the yellow-billed cuckoo–aka the “rain crow,” so named for its tendency to call out its throaty kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk-keow-keow-keowlp-keowlp when rain is in the wind.

It was a memorable day in my birding life when I first set eyes on this furtive bird, and not only because of its striking appearance: slender, elegant body; rich brown on top contrasted against the pale white underside; the long, curving, ivory-colored bill; and, most conspicuous of all, the pattern of white circles against black on the underside of its extra-long tail.

That was enough to get me started reading about this bird, and what I discovered was that everything about it is odd and wonderful. Take its nesting habits, for example. While its cousin across the Atlantic, the Old World cuckoo, is, like our cowbird, strictly a nest parasite, the yellow-bill does build its own nest. Sometimes. Then again, sometimes the female will lay her eggs in the nest of another yellow-bill. Then again, sometimes she will lay her eggs in a robin’s nest, or a thrush’s nest, or a cedar waxwing’s nest, or the nest of one of three or four other species.

Isn’t that odd? To me it’s very odd that the cowbird engages the services of foster parents to ensure the survival of the species, but at least it does so consistently. It’s way, way odder, I think, that the yellow-bill doesn’t know what it’s going to do until the time comes. Amazing, too, that if the female does decide to lay her eggs in the nest of another species, it’s usually one whose own eggs are the same blue-green color.

The yellow-bill’s eating habits are also fascinating. This bird loves caterpillars, even the hairy and spiny varieties most birds shun. In fact, according to Edward Forbush, its eager ingestion of these creatures has led to the development of perhaps the bird’s most unusual ability. “When, in time,” Forbush writes, “the inside of the bird’s stomach becomes so felted with a mass of hairs and spines that it obstructs digestion, the bird can shed the entire stomach-lining, meanwhile growing a new one–a process that would be beneficial to some unfeathered bipeds could they compass it.”

The doe has apparently decided that our sorry dogs pose no threat and that my tomatoes and cucumbers make lovely hors d’oeuvres. Consequently, over the past two weeks we’ve been able to watch as her two spindle-legged fawns grow out of their spots.

On the feeder I’m seeing the young cardinals now (“looks much like the female, but with blackish bill”). They’ve learned quickly that it’s all theirs–that they can sit on that dish and eat as many sunflower seeds as they can break open.

Along the driveway, the fuchsia crowns of bull thistles are bursting open, a reminder to the goldfinches that their heedless days are done and it’s time to get down to the serious business of nest-building and child-rearing.

Yesterday in the garden, looking down between my flip-flopped feet, I saw a pair of gold-green Japanese beetles writhing in a furious and passionate embrace.

In Atlanta, those two red-tailed hawk chicks have just now fledged. And, at last, inside the house, in the downstairs study-turned-bedroom, hearing those young birds cry from the treetops like untutored angels, my father can release his spirit from its worn shackles.

Rest in peace, dear old Dad.

In Highlands, NC, a few weeks back, mid-morning, I heard a bird singing from the crown of a tree in a clearing across the road. It was a pretty song–three or four phrases, slightly varied, and repeated insistently enough for me to pick up my nocs and walk across the road to investigate.

A robin. Cheerily, cheer-up, cheer, cheerily, cheer-up. Yep. That standard rendering is close enough, once I had finally put the actual bird and its song together. I wrote in The Armchair Birder that, deep in my woods, I don’t see summer robins and so never hear them sing. I’m about to decide that that’s OK.

I’m writing this in Charlottesville, VA, where we’re attending the wedding of a friend of our daughter Ruthie. This morning a cardinal started singing at 5:00 a.m., then, perhaps realizing that it was still well before daylight and that there had been considerable human bibulosity the night before, he had the good manners to shut up. But at 5:30 (still black-dark outside our open window) the robin tuned up. If my two recent experiences are any indication, once robins start, they don’t stop.

In fact, with the robin going full-out, the cardinal apparently decided to throw decency aside and joined in, and the two birds continued their a cappella concert until the rising sun completed the job of rousing the household.

I’m kinda looking forward to getting back to my woods, where the morning songs of wrens and titmice begin early, but not criminally early.