Smooth-billed Ani - Ross Feldner

In my quest for the rare and unusual I found this member of the cuckoo family with a magnificent proboscis. Only seen in the United States in southern Florida in open and semi-open country, the Smooth-billed Ani is one of the few bird species that has actually benefited from deforestation. It has proved to have an exceptional capacity for adaptation to new environments.

Smooth-billed Anis are always found in gregarious, noisy groups foraging for insects. In pastures, they will follow cattle and catch the insects they flush out. They forage on the ground and in bushes, running and hopping awkwardly with one member of the group perching up high as a lookout for danger.

Its flight is weak and wobbly, but this bird runs well, usually feeding on the ground. Its diet is mostly insects including grasshoppers, beetles, moths, and caterpillars. But it will also eat small fruits, seeds and berries.

They are community nesters with as many as five pairs working together to build one large nest where all the adults help incubate the eggs and care for the young. The nest is a bulky bowl of weeds and twigs, lined with leaves and usually built in a dense shrub.

Early naturalists failed to find the ani in Florida but it became a regular nester during the 1930s after a series of hurricanes.and remained common for several decades.

Currently their fate in Florida is tenuous and they are becoming increasingly scarce although their global population is stable.