Bird of the Week: Hispaniolan Lizard Cuckoo
It looks awesome and inspired freedom fighters. What's not to love?
This week’s Bird of the Week is a little late because we had to do our Oscars pod on Friday. That’s the power of cinema! But birds have power too, particularly when they’re birds like this one. Meet…the Hispaniolan lizard cuckoo.
This entry in our canon is also a measure of what the power that one person can have if they stand up for what they believe in. The lizard cuckoo has had a persistent reader champion for many, many months. Through rain and sleet and snow, the chant has reached us: “what about this bird???” Because we value our readers so highly, we decided we had to take this request. And guess what? This bird rules!
The first thing we have to talk about is that tail. Here’s another look.
There’s something very painterly about this tail to me. It’s in the dramatic length of the feathers, the symmetry of the circles, the way that even white blobs are made to look vibrant. A true “nature was cooking” moment if ever there was one.
But the joys of this bird don’t stop there.
The orange-y belly area? The red circle around the eyes? The beak? Priceless stuff.
As the name implies, the Hispaniolan lizard cuckoo can only be found on the island of Hispaniola, which contains Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Dominicans refer to it as “pájaro bobo,” meaning “silly” or maybe “stupid” bird (which, rude but whatever), and Haitians call it a “tacco” (also sometimes spelled “tako”) bird. As the book and the name inform us, the lizard cuckoo does indeed eat lizards. It also eats snakes, and insects, and spiders, and all sorts of other bugs and things.
The lizard cuckoo is important enough in Haiti to be the subject of scholarly attention. Here’s a snippet from Haiti Fights Back: The Life and Legacy of Charlemagne Péralte, a book by Oberlin professor Yveline Alexis, about the guerrilla fighters who resisted the 1915-1934 US occupation of Haiti:
So it’s a cool-looking avian whose eating habits inspired freedom fighters? Now this bird is just showing off.
OK, now to a couple videos. It’s wild that a video of a bird just darting around on some branches can be so entrancing, but it is! This bird has a real confident grace about it.
And here’s what it sounds like.
All in all, a lovely bird—and a reminder that places like Haiti, which are so often dismissed as hellish wastelands, are actually overflowing with richness and wonder. It would be good if the rest of the world did anything to support that richness and wonder, rather than constantly trying to grind Haiti into dust.
OK, that’s it for Bird of the Week! Coming Friday: FOWL HYSTERIA 2024. I can’t wait.
A reminder: you can check out our complete Bird of the Week list here, and get in touch with your bird suggestions at hello@discourseblog.com.
