This is bird note.

The call of the Yellow-Build cuckoo may sound a bit like a car engine struggling to turn over before revving to life.

But for generations and generations, people recognize these rattling gulps and hollow hoots as a precursor to something else.

Rain.

For people in the American Midwest, the bird was known as the raincrow, and its call

was a sure sign of incoming weather.

Of course, mid-Westerners don't rely on birds to predict the weather today, but in a part of the world

where the clouds can open suddenly and drop anything from discomfort to devastation, the bizarre

croaking on a summer afternoon can still inspire a shiver.

Unfortunately, over much of this bird's wide range, the voice of the Yellow-Billed

cuckoo is heard less and less frequently.

The open woodlands and riparian areas where they nest have been replaced by productive fields and tidy lawns.

Pesticides are also to blame.

But in the undeveloped stretches of the Midwest, watch for the slinky slender form of the cuckoo,

and listen hard for the evocative voice of the raincrow.

For Bird Note, I'm Michael Stein.