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.”