Mangrove Cuckoo

How to find it

Listen first. The voice is loud but given only now and then, so the gawk series is your best clue. Then scan the canopy slowly, since the bird forages high up. Check forest edges and small openings, where it may cross in view. Look in mangroves, gallery forest and dry forest thickets on the northern Pacific slope. Be patient with stillness, because it can sit motionless for long periods.

How to recognise it

Start with the face: a black mask, usually darker and bigger than the mask of a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Then check the rest in turn.

- Underparts: buffy, also described as peachy.

- Back: grayish brown.

- Bill: black upper, yellow lower, so it reads as black over yellow.

- Size: a large cuckoo.

- In flight: no rufous flash in the wings, which the Yellow-billed shows.

Costa Rican birds come in both light and dark individuals, and both are found anywhere in the country. A paler or darker bird than you expected is not cause for doubt.

What it sounds like

Recording: Nick Block, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

This cuckoo often walks quietly from branch to branch instead of flying. It also stays still for long periods while it peers around, and both habits make it hard to notice.

It forages in the tree canopy and may come to forest edges or cross small openings, which are the best moments to catch sight of it. Its voice is loud but given only now and then.

It eats large, slow insects and lizards.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica it uses the canopy and edges of forest, young secondary forest, scrub, gallery forest, dry forest thickets and mangroves.

It is uncommon to fairly common in some lowland and foothill spots of the northern Pacific slope, and rare farther south along the coast and around the Golfo Dulce area. In some places, such as the west of the Central Valley, it reaches about 1100 m. On the Caribbean side it is regular only in the far northwest.

When to see it

It is treated as a non-breeding visitor present from December to June, not as a year-round bird here. Palo Verde is best visited in the dry season, which a Costa Rican tour site gives as December to April.

Similar birds

Yellow-billed Cuckoo has white underparts and an all-yellow lower bill, while the Mangrove Cuckoo has peachy or buffy underparts and a black-over-yellow bill. The Mangrove's mask is usually darker and bigger. Cocos Cuckoo looks much like it but lives only on Cocos Island, Costa Rica, and some authors treat the two as one species.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Rican sources give several names for this bird: Cuclillo de Antifaz, Cuclillo de Orejinegro and Cuclillo de Manglar.

Status and conservation

The AOCR official list marks it as possibly resident (R?) and a migrant (M), and it is treated here mainly as a December to June visitor.