Grandma called it a rain crow because to her, at least, its monotonous, guttural monotone "cloke-cloke-cloke-cloke" meant approaching rain. I thought of her on a recent morning as the yellow ...

First, “rain crow” is a common name that some people in the region use for birds that are better known as cuckoos. In fact, there are two species: yellow-billed cuckoo and black-billed cuckoo.

If you’re one of the many people hiking though Alabama’s forests this summer, you may want to look for the yellow-billed cuckoo. Good luck. Yellow-billed cuckoos tend to hide, high up in the trees in ...