Nighthawk

“ The nighthawk circled overhead in the sunny afternoons -- for I sometimes made a day of it -- like a mote in the eye, or in heaven's eye, falling from time to time with a swoop and a sound as if the heavens were rent, torn at last to very rags and tatters, and yet a seamless cope remained; small imps that fill the air and lay their eggs on the ground on bare sand or rocks on the tops of hills, where few have found them; graceful and slender like ripples caught up from the pond, as leaves are raised by the wind to float in the heavens; such kindredship is in nature. ”

“ While it is true that there is a general resemblance in form, in details of color and markings, the two birds are quite unlike, while so far as notes and habits are concerned, few members of the same family differ more. The Whip-poor-will haunts the shadows of the woods and rarely flies far above the ground, the Nighthawk, like a Swift, courses high in the open, even over city house-tops, where anyone who looks may see him. ”

“ Not till a stick hits the limb close to where he is sitting does he stretch his long wings with their telltale white spots and fly rapidly away. And the other two sit unmoved. But some night we hear the whirr of the nighthawk’s wings as he drops rapidly from a great height, or we see him skimming close to the surface of the stream in search of insects in some twilight hour and then he is the embodiment of strength, agility, and swiftness. ”

“ The Nighthawk often ascends high in the sky with a series of quick wing beats, each accompanied by his call of a nasal “peent.” When the desired height is attained, he folds his wings slightly and dives with a booming sound. ”

“ Like the mother whip-poor-will, she makes no nest but places her two speckled treasures in some sunny spot, either on the bare ground, on a rock, or even on the flat roof of a house. Since electric lights attract so many insects to the streets of towns and villages, the enterprising nighthawk often forsakes the country to rear her children where they may enjoy the benefits of modern improvements. ”

“ The nighthawk is not a musician. While flying it frequently utters a single note, of a guttural-nasal quality, almost indistinguishable from the so-called bleat of the woodcock; but, in place of singing, it indulges in a fine aerial tumbling performance, much in the manner of the snipe. This performance I have many times observed in early summer from the Public Garden in Boston. I have seen it also in September, though it is doubtless much less common at that season. [62] The bird rises gradually to a considerable height, and presently drops like a stone almost to the ground. ”

“ Rowing towards the roof of your house, as if it used first one wing, then the other, its flight, while swift and powerful, is stiff and mechanical, unlike the swallow's, and its entire aspect suggests a bat. The nighthawk and whippoorwill are its relatives, and it resembles them not a little, especially in its nocturnal habits. ”

“ Male with broad white tips to outer tail feathers; female with narrow buffy tips. These birds are often confounded with the Nighthawk, but are very easily distinguished by the long bristles from the base of bill, the black chin, the chestnut and black barred wing feathers and the rounded tail. Whip-poor-wills are more nocturnal than Nighthawks and on moonlight nights continue the whistled repetition of their name throughout the night. They capture and devour a great many of the large-bodied moths that are found in the woods, but are never seen flying over cities like Nighthawks. ”

“ Too often it is mistaken for the whippoorwill. The nighthawk does not have the weird and woful cry of that more dismal bird, but gives instead a harsh, whistling note while on the wing, followed by a vibrating, booming, whirring sound that Nuttall likens to "the rapid turning of a spinning wheel, or a strong blowing into the bung-hole of an empty hogshead." This peculiar sound is responsible for the name nightjar, frequently given to this curious bird. It is said to be made as the bird drops suddenly through the air, creating a sort of stringed instrument of its outstretched wings and tail. ”

“ Breeds from Manitoba, southern Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia south to northern Louisiana, Mississippi, and Georgia, and from eastern North Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas eastward; winters from the lowlands of South Carolina and southern parts of the Gulf States to British Honduras and Salvador.
The nighthawk is a remarkable bird. Because of its nocturnal habits, it has been regarded with superstitious awe. Erroneous ideas of it have been entertained, and it has received a name that belies it. It is not a hawk at all; it preys only on insects, not on chickens or small rodents. ”

“ And some day we perchance find the two dirt colored eggs on the bare ground, or the tiny young, like bits of rabbit fur, with only the earth beneath them and the sky above them, apparently as deserted and destitute as Romulus and Remus; and all this adds wonderfully to our interest in this strange bird, which is so common in the June woods. [59]
The whip-poor-will is much like the nighthawk. Both are of about the same size and color. Both sit lengthwise on limbs. Both are weird creatures that sleep by day and hunt by night. But the nighthawk has a V-shaped patch of white on his throat ”

“ Little Thunder seized the leading line of the first packer, leaped astride his own pony, and pushed out into the storm. But the rest of the animals held back and refused to face the blizzard. The traditions of the cayuse are unheroic in the matter of blizzards and are all in favor of turning tail to every storm that blows. But Nighthawk soon overcame their reluctance, whether traditional or otherwise. With a fury nothing less than demoniacal he fell upon the animals next him and inspired them with such terror that, plunging forward, they carried the bunch crowding through the door. ”

“ The whip-poor-will's three outer tail feathers have white ends which help to distinguish him from the nighthawk. He has a funny little short beak, but his large mouth stretches from ear to ear, and when he flies low above the fields after sunset, this trap is kept open, like the swift's and the swallow's, to catch any night-flying insects—mosquitoes, June bugs, gnats, katydids and little moths—that cross his path. Long, stiffened bristles at the ends of his mouth prevent the escape of a victim past the gaping trap. On the wing the bird is exceedingly swift and graceful. ”

“ The two species can readily be distinguished at a distance by the absence of any pronounced white marking in
ths wings, and by the white tips to the outer tail feathers in the present species, while the Night Hawk has a prominent white band across the tail, but the top is black, and the tail slightly forked. The Whip-poor-will, rarely leaves its place of concealment before dark, and is never, seen flying about cities, as are the Nighthawks. In their pursuit of insects, they glide like a shadow over fields and woods, their soft plumage giving forth no sound as their wings cleave the air. ”

“ Usually the nighthawks hunt in little companies in the most sociable fashion. Late in the summer they seem to be almost gregarious. They fly in the early morning or late afternoon with beak wide open, hawking for insects, but except when the moon is full they are not known to go a-hunting after sunset. During the heat of the day and at night they rest on limbs of trees, fence-rails, stone walls, lichen-covered rocks or old logs—wherever Nature has provided suitable mimicry of their plumage to help conceal them. ”

“ The confusion of the two birds is widespread, in spite of Audubon’s testimony that he had seldom seen a farmer or even a boy in the United States who did not know the difference between them. But, while they resemble each other closely, they are sufficiently unlike to be classified not only as separate species, but as species of different genera. As for the difference in their habits, it is such as any one may see and appreciate. The nighthawk, for all its name, is not a night bird. ”

“ They are dull white with delicate obscure lilac markings, and a few brownish gray spots.
NIGHTHAWK
Chordeiles virginianus virginianus. Case 6, Fig. 39
A white mark across the black outer wing-quills is very conspicuous in flight; seen from below it suggests a hole in the bird's wing. The female has the throat buff and no white band in the tail. L. 10.
Range. Eastern North America from the Gulf States and Georgia north to Canada and Alaska. Winters in the tropics coming north in April. The Florida Nighthawk (C. v. chapmani) a smaller race (L. 81⁄2) is a Summer Resident in the Gulf States. ”

“ The young, which we found as frequently as the eggs, resemble a pinch of gray down, and so perfectly do both they and the eggs match the gray rock on which they are laid, it is only by a rare chance if you find a nest without flushing the old bird. The young nighthawk is about as broad as long, and, unlike the callow young of most birds, it is covered from head to foot with a thick coat of down. ”

“ The West has the Poor-will, or the Nuttall's Whip-poor-will, who is rather smaller and paler than either. The habits of all are about the same. They are called solitary birds. That is, they are not found in parties like swallows or crows. They do not sing or call when flying.
These birds are hard to watch because they come out in the dark, and can then see so much better than we can. So we know little about their ways.
[158]
The Nighthawk's looks, and all his ways, are different. ”

“ Our nighthawk makes a booming sound with its wings by extending its outer quills as it dives earthward. A weapon is also found by some birds in their wings, the pigeon, hen and other of our common birds using their wings to strike with.
The foot shares with the wing the duties of locomotion. Birds with highly developed wings have poor feet. The swallow, an aerial bird, is an example. The chimney-swift has a tiny foot, but enormously developed wings, and if placed on a flat surface is unable even to support itself. All aquatic and terrestrial birds have excellently developed feet. ”

“ Thus some species that are more or less associated with each other in summer, as nighthawks, barn swallows, cliff swallows, and some of the thrushes, may also occupy the same general winter quarters in Brazil. Some individual nighthawks and barn swallows travel still farther, and of all North American land birds these species probably have the longest migration route, as they occur north in summer to Yukon and Alaska, and south in winter to Argentina, 7,000 miles away. ”

“ Moreover, there is always something incongruous about the appearance of this prairie species in the land of tall timber. He is like the [408] man from Kansas. He has a perfect right here and he is a very good fellow. Oh, to be sure!
The Pacific Nighthawk differs by scarcely assignable characters from the typical form of the eastern United States, but it is separated from it in distribution by two bleached phases, C. v. ”

“ In the air, their flight is a series of fluttering spurts, followed by long glides. Before aviators broke the sound barrier, nighthawks had their own ‘sonic boom,’ created by diving vertically from considerable height and flaring sharply upward near the ground. ”

“ It is now abundantly established that migration is mostly carried on at night, and further mainly during clear nights. Only a comparatively few species, such as ducks, cranes, certain large hawks, swallows, swifts, and nighthawks, migrate during the daytime, and these it will be observed, are either rapacious birds or mainly those that enjoy such power of rapid flight as to be relatively safe from capture. All the vast horde of warblers, sparrows, finches, flycatchers, thrushes and woodpeckers, as well as many waders and swimmers, migrate at night. ”

“ More nearly deserving the name nightjar, however, is our night-hawk, or bullbat, which is often seen flying swiftly about, high in the air, even before sunset, uttering a hoarse scream, or a queer-booming note, as it rushes, open-mouth, after unlucky insects.
All the birds of this group are insect catchers and eaters, and their mouths, which have only a tiny pretence of a beak, open exceedingly wide, so that they may scoop in a dozen little flies at once, or seize and swallow a great moth. Then the tongue is exceedingly sticky, like that of an ant-eater ”

“ It has been said, that when sent aloft, they will pick out the birds that are wanted, and that when the opportune moment for taking them has come, they invite the fowler to seize the opportunity by their cries and their peculiar mode of flying. Hawks will not eat the heart of a bird. The night-hawk is called cybindis; it is rarely found, even in the woods, and in the day-time its sight is not good; it wages war to the death with the eagle, and they are often to be found clasped in each other’s talons. ”

“ We have buried [Pg 205] the tomahawk, and the sound of the rifle will hereafter only bring death to the deer and the buffalo. Brother, you have treated the red men very kindly. Your squaws have made them presents, and you have given them plenty to eat and drink. The memory of your friendship will remain till the Great Spirit says it is time for Black Hawk to sing his death-song. Brother, your houses are as numerous as the leaves upon the trees, and your young warriors, like the sands upon the shore of the big lake that rolls before us. ”

“ Ill-tempered and instinctively hostile toward every one else, man or beast, he showed signs of an active devotion to his tranquil yoke-fellow, and would sometimes spend hours licking Star's neck while the latter went on chewing the cud in complacent acceptance of the attention.
The twilight gathered deeper about the lonely backwoods clearing. The night-hawk, a soaring and swooping speck in the pallid spaces of the sky, became invisible, though his strange note still twanged sonorously from time to time. The hermit hushed his fluting in the alder thicket. ”