July 8, 2009
Biologist Dan Cooper had a unique sighting in California recently. He saw a Coccyzus americanus.
He had studied the yellow-billed cuckoo in Kern County in the 1990s. But no one had spotted the dove-like relative of the woodpecker in the San Gabriel Valley since 1952.
He looked up and saw the yellow beak and the long tail with white spots underneath.
“It’s the kind of thing you see and there is just no doubt about it,” he said. “He sat up in the top of the tree for like a minute. It’s like seeing an old friend.”
The rare sighting last week has set off biologists and birders around the area and has brought new attention to the Whittier Narrows, and specifically a 4-mile stretch of the Rio Hondo.
. . .
While Cooper, who was raised in San Marino and now lives in Culver City, is unsure if the yellow-billed cuckoo lived near the river or was just passing through, the sighting reinforced his belief that long-gone animals are coming back to the San Gabriel Valley.
“Since the 1990s, we’ve seen a pretty dramatic return of these riparian species,” Cooper said.
More, see Whittier Daily News
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Filed under Avian Mysteries, Breaking News, Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Eyewitness Accounts