Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Either of two South American birds (Rupicola rupicola or R. peruviana) having a distinctive crest and bright-orange or reddish plumage in the male.
Wiktionary
- n. a tropical kind of bird, of the genus Rupicola
Etymologies
- From its habit of nesting on rocks. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“A male Andean cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola peruviana) displays in the cloud forest to attract a nearby female.”
“The cloud forest supports a wide diversity of fauna with such notable species as turkey vulture Cathartes aura, Andean guan Penelope montagnii, scarlet-fronted parakeet Aratinga wagleri, lyre-tailed nightjar Uropsalis lyra, marvellous spatuletail Loddigesia mirabilis (VU), cock-of-the-rock Rupicola peruviana, carbonated flower-piercer Diglossa carbonaria and hepatic tanager Piranga flava (Mittermeier, de Macedo and Luscombe, 1975).”
“A day or two after, my hunter brought me a specimen of the green gaper (Calyptomena viridis), which is like a small cock-of-the-rock, but entirely of the most vivid green, delicately marked on the wings with black bars.”
“Now, as I have said in a former chapter, these are wise little birds, more interesting -- I had almost said more beautiful -- in their wisdom, or wisdom-simulating instincts, than the quatzel in its resplendent green, or the cock-of-the-rock in its vivid scarlet and orange mantle.”
“Such are the rapid descent of the snipe, the soaring and singing of the lark, and the dances of the cock-of-the-rock and of many other birds.”
“However, I find now that no exact period can be fixed; for in December 1824 an Indian in the River Demerara gave me a young cock-of-the-rock not a month old, and it had just been brought from the Macoushi country.”
“The elegant crested bird called cock-of-the-rock, admirably described by”
“But the rest of the time, I was in my laid-back explorer mode, including my drive with Kurt up the abandoned Mindo-Quito road, where thanks to his telescopic "view-scope," we saw several roadside orchids and the cock-of-the-rock.”
“Ten minutes out on one of our expeditions up an abandoned road, a brilliantly red cock-of-the-rock eyed us imperiously from a tree branch 15 metres away.”
“Ten minutes out on one of our expeditions up an abandoned road, a brilliantly red cock-of-the-rock eyed us imperiously from a tree branch 50 feet away.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cock-of-the-rock’.
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birds
masked cardinal, bobwhite, masked lovebird, obscure honeyeater, creamy-rumped miner, laced woodpecker, robust lancetooth, purplish honeycre..., shining honeycreeper, honeycreeper, sugarbird, honeyeater and 122 more...
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Still More Bird Wirds
A work in progress....Birds from around the world (other than endemic to North America).
barbet, hornbill, trogon, bee-eater, bristlehead, wren-babbler, stubtail, blackeye, bush warbler, cassowary, bowerbird, bird-of-paradise and 723 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cock-of-the-rock.
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