Squirrel Cuckoo (Piaya cayana)
Squirrel Cuckoo, Parque Estadual Cantareira, São Paulo, Brazil, July 2001 - click for larger image Brazil

The Squirrel Cuckoo is well named because you could easily mistake it for a squirrel as it slips through tree branches.

It is found from Mexico to northern Argentina and prefers open types of forest and woodland.
Squirrel Cuckoo, Boa Nova, Bahia, Brazil, July 2002 - click for larger image From a distance it could be confused with the Black-bellied Cuckoo (Piaya melanogaster) or the much smaller Little Cuckoo (Piaya minuta). They all have a similar silhouette including the very long, graduated tail. However, the Black-bellied has a black, as opposed to a gray belly as well as having a grey cap while the Little Cuckoo has mostly cinnamon underparts.
Squirrel Cuckoo, Intervales, São Paulo, Brazil, April 2004 - click for larger image The iris is red and the bare skin around the eye is red except in Central America and west of the Andes where it is yellowish green.

It feeds on insects and, despite its name, it is not a brood parasite but normally lays 2 to 3 eggs which are incubated by both parents.

There are illustrations in Sick, Plate 15; Hilty & Brown, Plate 12; Ridgely & Greenfield, Plate 33; and HBW, Volume 4, Page 600 (but note that the subspecies P. c. nigricrissa is illustrated here as having red orbital skin. This does not agree with Hilty & Brown nor with Ridgely & Greenfield.)
Squirrel Cuckoo, Caxiuanã, Pará, Brazil, November 2005 - click for larger image
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