Breeding

The breeding season in Mexico appears to be March through August when the males sing. In Oaxaca breeding is from April to June while in Panama calling most frequent from mid-April to July, i.e. from the onset of wet season. There is little information about territorial behaviour. Males respond to singing males with counter-singing or by a strutting display involving head and crest raised, breast feathers puffed out and wings partially extended to show white spots with tail coverts arched. This display can be performed while voicing low grunts and guttural clicks^[5] or silently.

The pheasant cuckoo is one of three New World members of the Cuculidae which is brood parasitic. The precise details of its breeding biology are little known except for a list of known host species including tyrant flycatchers in the genus Myiozetetes, yellow-olive flatbill, eye-ringed flatbill, pied water tyrant and barred antshrike, all of which are sub-oscine passerines. As with other parasitic cuckoos, parental care of eggs and young is provided by the host species.

Feeding

This is an insectivorous species and its food includes grasshoppers, cicadas and beetles; occasionally also small lizards and nestlings. It has a stylized terrestrial foraging behaviour which includes rattling sounds made by vibrating its plumage and bill clapping while the bird stands with body, wing and tail bobbing before lunging forward with several short steps, before pecking in the leaf litter for potential prey.