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Whip-poor-will
Caprimulgus vociferus [Eastern
Whippoorwill]
Contributed by Winsor Marrett Tyler
[Published in 1940:
Smithsonian Institution United States National Museum Bulletin
176: 163-183]
Almost every man, woman, and child living in the wide breeding
range of the whippoorwill knows the bird by name. Those who once
hear it singing, reiterating its name perhaps a hundred times or
more without a pause, cannot fail to realize that they are
listening to a whippoorwill, but how many of this multitude who
know the whippoorwill's name ever saw the bird, or would recognize
it if they did see it? Not, it may be presumed, one-tenth of 1
percent.
Yet, the whippoorwill lived many long years in denser obscurity
still, for, playing a part behind the scenes, so to speak, its
lines were ascribed to another actor in the play; it was not
recognized as a bird at all until the early part of the last
century. Prior to this time the whippoorwill was supposed to be
nothing more than the voice of the nighthawk, and even now in many
rural districts the two birds are not clearly distinguished from
each other. William Brewster (1895) says: "They are still
very generally regarded by country people throughout New England
as one and the same bird."
Spring.--The whippoorwill starts
northward from central Florida in the latter part of March. This
northerly movement evidently represents a general migration from
the southern and eastern Gulf States, and through them from points
farther south. The bird arrives in the latitude of Boston, Mass.,
late in April or early in May, thus flying a distance of a
thousand miles or more in 35 or 40 days--a migration that
corresponds closely, both in time of year and in speed of travel,
with that of the chimney swift. Of this journey Wilson (1831)
says:
In their migrations north, and on their return, they
probably stop a day or two at some of their former stages, and do
not advance in one continued flight. The whip-poor-will was first
heard this season [1811] on the 2nd day of May, in a corner of Mr.
Bartram's woods, not far from the house, and for two or three
mornings after in the same place, where I also saw it. From this
time until the beginning of September, there were none of these
birds to be found within at least one mile of the place; though I
frequently made search for them. On the 4th of September the
whip-poor-will was again heard for two evenings successively in
the same part of the woods. I also heard several of them passing,
within the same week, between dusk and nine o'clock at night, it
being then clear moonlight. These repeated their notes three or
four times, and were heard no more. It is highly probable that
they migrate during the evening and night.
F. Seymour Hersey (1923) tells of a striking instance of
nocturnal migration when a multitude of whippoorwills arrived
suddenly at Lakeville, Mass., in the middle of the night.
In 1901 [he says], on the evening of May 4, about
eight o'clock, a single bird was heard singing. This was the first
arrival noted and no others were heard that evening. At two
o'clock the following morning, six hours later, I was awakened by
birds singing loudly everywhere. I dressed and went out and for
more than an hour the chorus continued. There were numbers of
birds about the house, on the door-step and ridge-pole, others
singing in the road or from the stone walls along the road side,
while still others could be heard down in the pastures--often
eight or ten were singing at the same instant. I walked down the
road for half a mile and the birds seemed equally as abundant on
neighbors' farms. It seems probable that the migration takes place
at night as these birds had just arrived.
Courtship.--Few observers have
had the good fortune to watch the sexual activities of the
whippoorwill. One must be very near the birds to see, in the semi
darkness, the courtship in detail, and even should we catch sight
of a courting pair--a rare happening--we may get but a glimpse of
their actions, because, if they flit only a little way back into
the gloom, they are lost to view, fading into the shadows.
Frank Bolles (1912) tells of the following experience. He was
hidden under a "narrow fringe of spirea bushes, 2 1/2 ft.
high only 3 ft. from the stone"--a stone on which a
whippoorwill sang every evening. He says:
It uttered its note about twenty or thirty times when to my
astonishment another whip, alighted near it, on the left (W.) end
of the boulder. One or two sounds like the soft popping of corn
came from the new arrival, and the first bird, which had ceased
its call, faced west and began a strange, slow dance, advancing a
step at a time towards its mate, raising its body to the full
length of its legs at each step, thus making a sort of undulating
approach. The other bird remained where it alit, but seemed to be
moving its body up and down or else slowly pulsating its wings.
The first bird, which I think was the male, seemed to continue its
dance entirely around the female. As he passed her, indescribable
purring and popping sounds were made and one of the birds flew
lightly away--the female I think. The male resumed his first
position and remained silent. Then he rose and circled in the air,
catching an insect I thought, for he came back at once to the spot
on the rock which he always covers. A moment later his mate seemed
to call from below the house, near the lake, and he flew, his
white feathers flashing as he spread his tail, and the strokes of
his wings making a distinct and quite loud sound as he passed
close above my head.
Henry K. Coale (1920) reporting the observation of his
neighbor, Moritz Boehm, says:
On different occasions, while the male was calling, he saw
the female going through some peculiar antics, but in the dusk
could not make out just what she was doing. One evening, when he
was sitting on the lower step, the birds came up and performed
within ten feet of him. He kept perfectly quiet. The male called
from a low branch overhead, while the female strutted on the
gravel path below, with wings and tail outspread and head lowered,
and side-stepped back and forth, half way around to the right,
then to the left, all the time uttering a curious guttural
chuckle. This performance was kept up for ten or fifteen minutes.
Bendire's (1895) account of the whippoorwill's courtship is the
best in the literature; it has become almost a classic, and
ornithologists still deplore the regrettable incident that
interrupted the observation.
While on a collecting trip in Herkimer County, New York,
with Dr. William L. Ralph, in June, 1893, I witnessed a most
amusing performance, which one may see perhaps once in a lifetime.
I happened to be in a little outbuilding, some 20 feet in the rear
of the house at which we were stopping, early on the evening of
the 24th, about half an hour after sundown, when I heard a
peculiar, low, clucking noise outside, which was directly followed
by the familiar call of the "whip-poor-will." . . .
Directly alongside of the small outbuilding previously referred
to, a barrel of sand and lime had been spilled, and from the
numerous tracks of these birds, made by them nightly afterwards,
it was evident that this spot was visited regularly, and was the
trysting place of at least one pair. Looking through a small
aperture, I saw one of the birds waddling about in a very excited
manner over the sand-covered space, which was perhaps 2 by 3 feet
square, and it was so much interested in its own performance that
it did not notice me, although I made some noise trying to fight
off a swarm of mosquitoes which assailed me from all sides. Its
head appeared to be all mouth, and its notes were uttered so
rapidly that, close as I was to the bird, they sounded like one
long, continuous roll.
A few seconds after his first effort (it was the male) he
was joined by his mate, and she at once commenced to respond with
a peculiar, low, buzzing or grunting note, like "gaw-gaw-gaw,"
undoubtedly a note of approval or endearment. This evidently cost
her considerable effort; her head almost touched the ground while
uttering it, her plumage was relaxed, and her whole body seemed to
be in a violent tremble. The male in the meantime had sidled up to
her and touched her bill with his, which made her move slightly to
one side, but so slowly that he easily kept close alongside her.
These sidling movements were kept up for a minute or more each
time; first one would move away, followed by the other, and then
it was reversed; both were about equally bold and coy at the same
time. Their entire love making looked exceedingly human, and the
female acted as timid and bashful as many young maidens would when
receiving the first declarations of their would-be lovers, while
the lowering of her head might easily be interpreted as being done
to hide her blushes. Just about the time I thought this courtship
would reach its climax, a dog ran out of the house and caused both
to take flight.
Nesting.--The whippoorwill lays
its two eggs on dry, well-drained ground, generally near the edge
of a wood of small mixed growth--oak, beech, pine--where the floor
of the wood is clear of dense underbrush and where the trees are
not crowded together, but spaced far enough apart to cast an
uneven shadow. The eggs may lie on the open floor or under a small
bush--not tucked away near the stems, but out in the shadow of its
branches. The bird builds no nest, although a slight depression
about the eggs may result from the presence of the parent there
during incubation; for concealment it relies solely on the soft
color of the fallen leaves and the flickering light of the
woodland.
It is rare to find the eggs laid in a more open situation.
Lewis McI. Terrill, in a letter to Mr. Bent, gives in detail
the results of remarkably close observations of the home life of a
pair of whippoorwills and their brood. His observations were made
near St. Lambert, Quebec, in 1933.
On May 14 Mr. Terrill came upon a pair of whippoorwills in a
patch of deciduous trees, mainly young maple and birch. A week
later he flushed the female "from a single egg lying on a bed
of old leaves in a small glade" near the spot where he first
saw the birds. "There was no depression whatever, and the egg
appeared as if it had been casually dropped there." The
second egg was not laid until the 23d, indicating "that egg
deposition takes place on alternate days."
Invariably at his subsequent visits Mr. Terrill found the
female incubating or brooding, but while the young birds remained
in the vicinity of the nest he saw the male near it only once
(June 20).
He says: "The male spent the day in a thicket over 400
yards away. I usually heard him singing from this direction in the
early part of the evening; later he sang from a point nearer the
nest; and finally from its immediate vicinity. I gather from this
that he visited his family regularly at night.
"On May 27 the eggs were resting in a noticeable
depression made by the pressure of the bird's body. One might
almost call it a nest although no extraneous nesting material
whatever had been added. The female was very consistent in her
behavior, usually leaving the eggs when I was 10-15 feet away and
flying to a dead branch 2 feet from the ground where she uttered a
few protesting chucks, which resembled a call of the catbird and
to a lesser extent the chuck of the hermit thrush.
"On the occasion of the male's visit (June 20) both birds
were very worried, and their calls, especially that of the male
resembled the whip note of his song, although much subdued.
He sometimes called whip-will when excited by the distress
calls of the young.
"When returning to the nest the female frequently hovered
before alighting, often dropping to the ground a few feet from the
nest. Even at that short distance she would not attempt to walk
onto the eggs, but would fly up again, hover, and then alight
directly on the nest.
"The nighthawk, we may note, progresses differently. To be
sure, it occasionally flies short distances when approaching the
nest, but the final approach is by walking, or perhaps I should
say creeping in a Charlie Chaplin-like shuffle. The different
methods of approach to the nest are, I think, indicative of the
different habitats of two very similar birds. The woodland
whippoorwill hops or flies to avoid obstructions, whereas the
nighthawk can gain its objective without leaving the ground.
"The female whippoorwill was still incubating on June 10,
but on the 11th there were two young in the nest. The incubation
period for the last egg laid was, therefore, at least 19 days, and
possibly nearer 20.
"The first definite movement away from the nest was noted
on June 18, when the female was brooding the young 50 feet away.
On the 19th and 20th she was respectively 70 and 85 feet from the
nest. The female often alighted crosswise on a limb when excited,
or for the purpose of facing me, but quickly assumed the
lengthwise position.
"June 21-22--Female brooding young 100 feet from nest.
"June 25--One young bird flew 15 feet.
"June 26--Older chick flew 25 feet when female was
flushed. Younger bird still jumped, then squatted, but when I
placed it on a branch, it flew 15 feet. Both young always alighted
on the ground, but perched readily. This was the last I saw of the
family."
Mr. Terrill's report of this family of whippoorwills makes it
clear that the male parent rarely came near the nest at the times
he was watching it. For example, H. E. Tuttle (1911) says:
"The male Whip-poor-will I saw only once, and that was after
the young were fully grown. He was very conspicuous in the dusk as
he sat on a log, uttering rasping sounds in his throat and opening
and shutting his tail, brilliantly marked with white at the edges.
It was only a day or so after seeing the male bird that I lost
sight of the young birds altogether."
But why should we expect the male whippoorwill to come to the
nest in the middle of the night--the whippoorwill's day? There is
nothing to do there at night except to keep the eggs warm, or,
after they hatch, to brood the young, and his mate can do that
while she sleeps on the nest. So he sleeps a little way off. But
when the dark comes--when his morning breaks--when the night
insects begin to fly, and food abounds, and his hungry children
cry, where is the male parent then? We do not know, but we may
assume, as Mr. Terrill suggests, that he joins his family and aids
in feeding the young.
When a female bird is approached while she is incubating (Bendire
says: "I believe the female attends to this duty almost
exclusively") the behavior varies a good deal in different
individuals. In many accounts of her actions, she is reported to
flop about on the ground, seemingly trying to lead the intruder
away. Wilson (1831) reports that "in traversing the woods one
day in the early part of June, along the brow of a rocky
declivity, a whippoorwill rose from my feet, and fluttered along,
sometimes prostrating herself, and beating the ground with her
wings, as if just expiring." On the other hand, H. E. Tuttle
(1911) speaks of a bird, brooding young, which was "very
fearless, allowing me to touch her back and making it necessary
for me to shove her gently off the young when I wanted a glimpse
of them."
Arthur C. Bent, in his notes, says that late in May he
"flushed a whippoorwill from near a woodland path, where it
apparently had been roosting regularly as evidenced by its
droppings." A few days later, not 25 yards from the path, he
"flushed the whippoorwill from the ground and saw its single
egg lying on the flat, bare oak leaves."
C. H. D. Clarke, writing to Mr. Bent from Ontario, Canada,
points out how changes in the topography of a region may affect
the local whippoorwills. He says: "The common denominator
explaining the local distribution of this species is, I believe,
to be found in its feeding and egg-laying habits. The whippoorwill
feeds in the open, like the nighthawk, but unlike it, fairly near
the ground. Although both birds lay their eggs on the ground, the
nighthawk nests in the open, whereas the whippoorwill always nests
among trees. Hence, as a breeding bird, it is found in glades and
around the edges of woodlots. Many of the woodlots, however, in
this vicinity are closely grazed by cattle at the present time, a
condition that prevailed less commonly in the semi pioneering
stage of our county. The whippoorwill does not tolerate this
change; it will not breed in the grazed woodlots, and, as a
consequence, has been reduced in numbers here. It also seems to
avoid extensive areas of conifers, possibly because of the absence
of hardwood litter on which to lay its eggs. The area at Frank's
Bay, in which the bird breeds very commonly, is a sand plain that
was burned over about 25 years ago and has since grown up in many
places to dense stands of poplar from 15 to 20 feet high. Here the
whippoorwill has plenty of shelter in the dense poplar woods, an
abundance of hardwood litter, and may cruise about over the
treetops not far above ground."
Eggs.--[AUTHOR'S NOTE: The two eggs
of the whippoorwill are between oval and elliptical-oval in shape
and become somewhat glossy when incubated. The ground color is
usually pure white, but occasionally a faint creamy tint is
perceptible. The markings consist of spots or small blotches of
"pale Quaker drab" or "pallid Quaker drab,"
scattered over the eggs more or less irregularly; an occasional
egg has large, irregular blotches of this color. Overlying these
pale gray markings, or scattered among them, are often many small
spots or fine dots of various browns, such as
"cinnamon-brown," "tawny," or
"tawny-olive." An occasional egg is almost immaculate.
The measurements of 50 eggs average 29.0 by 21.3 millimeters;
the eggs showing the four extremes measure 31.5 by 21.0,
30.48 by 22.86, 20.48 by 21.34, and 28.45 by 20.07
millimeters.]
Young.--The little whippoorwill
chick, hatching out from an invisible egg, finds itself lying on
the ground, with dead leaves all about. The dead leaves look like
the chick, and the chick looks like the dead leaves; no one can
tell them apart; practically the chick is a dead leaf, and,
although hatched, it is still invisible, just as it was when
hidden in the egg.
Some birds depend on speed for safety, or on agility or
strength, but the whippoorwill relies chiefly on not being seen.
Safety comes to the whippoorwill in dim light, half shadows, and
the faint, confusing obscurity of dusk, and among these, on the
borderland of invisibility, the whippoorwill lives all its days.
Nests of the whippoorwill are found almost always by accident.
The old bird starts up from near the observer's feet, a
search--sometimes a long one--reveals the eggs or the young birds.
For example, A. Dawes DuBois (1911) says:
The first nest was found on May 16, 1908, in a strip of
woods of medium size trees, thickly undergrown, on a high bank of
the Sangamon River [Illinois]. The ground was well carpeted
with dried oak leaves. Our first intimation of Whippoorwills in
this place was the sudden appearance of an adult bird fluttering
along the ground in front of us, apparently with a broken wing. We
stopped at once and while my companion stood to mark the place, I
followed the bird a short distance. She fluttered along
noiselessly, feigning serious injury and leading me away from the
nest as rapidly as I could be induced to follow.
A search revealed the nest within a pace of the spot we had
marked. It contained one egg and the broken shell of another which
gave evidence of having hatched. Although I stooped to examine the
broken shell I did not see the bird that had hatched from it until
my companion called my attention to it. The little fellow was
crouched, motionless, upon the brown leaves not six inches from
the broken egg-shell.
H. E. Tuttle (1911) speaks thus of the young birds: "The
newly hatched birds were very attractive-looking little chicks so
long as they kept their mouths shut. They were a uniform buff
color, which matched well with the leaves, and the instant their
mother left them they ran in opposite directions and squatted. In
this maneuver the old bird seemed to aid them materially by the
vigorous flip which she gave them as she rose, often tumbling them
over on their backs."
J. G. Suthard writes to Mr. Bent from Musekgon, Mich., as
follows: "On June 14, 1936, I flushed a whippoorwill from an
oak-leafed spot on a steep hillside overlooking a large timbered
swamp. I shortly discovered two downy young with their eyes only
partly opened. They made no effort to escape and were silent when
handled. The parent flew around several times, uttering a whup-whup-whur
note, and then perched on a dead limb of a nearby tree. One of the
eggshells was about 6 feet below the nest on the hillside, and the
feces of the young had not been moved by the parents. As this nest
was only about 30 yards from the main highway, I returned several
times between this date and June 24 to see if, owing to my
disturbance of the young, the parents would move them. Each time I
visited the nest the parent was brooding the young in practically
the same spot."
Lewis McI. Terrill, in his study of nest life, quoted under
"Nesting," says that on June 12, before the young birds
were two days old, "whenever the female was flushed, the
nestlings hopped or jumped several inches with the suddenness and
unexpected agility of 'jumping beans,' then squatted in hiding
posture in the manner of woodcock chicks. The entire movement was
so rapid that it almost escaped notice." He continues:
"From the 13th to the 16th the female was brooding the
young either on the nest or in the shade 2 or 3 feet away. On the
latter date I heard one of the nestlings give a weak, complaining whip,
which was answered by the mother 20 feet away. It attempted to
follow her, progressing by little hops, but was in difficulty when
it encountered heavy undergrowth where it was unable to hop. The
smaller of the nestlings remained in the nest.
"June 26--The older bird when placed lengthwise on a limb
quickly turned about and perched crosswise, demonstrating youth's
objection to slavish custom! The older bird now frequently used
the whip note, which appears to be the chief motif in the
whippoorwill vocabulary. The younger bird still called in wheezy
tones that I readily imitated by sucking my finger--so well that
the mother bird frequently responded by flying to me and
fluttering at my feet. The young at this date, nearly 16 days old,
closely resembled their parents."
Terrill definitely established the incubation
period of one of the eggs in the nest he observed as not less than
19 days, "and possibly nearer 20." Burns (1915) gives
the incubation period as 17 days, and Audubon (1840) gives it as
14 days.
Plumages.--[AUTHOR'S NOTE: The
downy young whippoorwill is thickly covered with long, soft, silky
down, shading in color from "cinnamon" on the back to
"pinkish cinnamon" on the chest, and to "light
pinkish cinnamon" on the crown and abdomen; it matches the
dead leaves on which it is hatched.
The juvenal plumage begins to grow at an early age. Ridgway
(1914) says that the young male is "similar to the adult male
in 'pattern' and coloration of lateral rectrices, as well as of
primaries and primary coverts, but rest of plumage quite
different, the wing-coverts and scapulars deep brownish buff or
clay color, the former with coarse and irregular small spots of
black, the latter with very large irregular spots of black, and
under parts barred with dusky on a brownish buffy ground and, like
most of the upper parts, without fine vermiculations, the pilieum
spotted instead of streaked with black, and the band across lower
throat indistinct, more or less broken by dusky barring, and buffy
instead of white." The young female, he says, is
"similar to the young male, but three lateral rectrices
broadly tipped with ochraceous-buffy instead of having a large
white distal area."
A young bird in juvenal plumage, nearly grown, collected in
Massachusetts in July, is like the young male described above,
except that the feathers of the interscapular region and the
median wing coverts are from "ochraceous-buff" to
"light ochraceous-buff," with a narrow shaft streak and
a conspicuous subterminal small spot of black.
During July and August the juvenal contour plumage is shed, the
juvenal wings and tail being retained, and a first winter plumage
is acquired, in which the contour plumage closely resembles that
of the adult. This is worn until the following summer, when a
complete molt produces the fully adult plumage. Both young and old
birds have a complete annual molt between July and September.]
Food.--The earliest report on the
food of the whippoorwill is that of Wilson (1831), who was the
first writer to show that the whippoorwill and the nighthawk
are different birds. He says: "Their food appears to be large
moths, grasshoppers, pismires, and such insects as frequent the
bark of old rotten and decaying timber. They are also expert in
darting after winged insects."
Knight (1908) puts the following items on the whippoorwill's
bill of fare: "Their diet," he says, "would seem to
be entirely insectivorous moths of various species, Actias luna,
Samia cecropia, Samia columbia, Telea polyphemus,
and a great variety of species of Noctuidae, also grasshoppers,
crickets, mosquitoes, caddis flies, and in fact almost any sort of
insect available."
Bendire (1895) reports that "in the Western States, which
are sometimes overrun by swarms of Rocky Mountain Locusts, it also
feeds largely on these when abundant."
Forbush (1927) tells of the whippoorwill the following story
which will endear the bird to all mosquito haters. He says:
"While I slept unsheltered nightly for a week in the Concord
woods, rolled in my blanket, with only a head-net hung to a branch
overhead to protect me from mosquitoes, I noticed each morning
upon awaking just before daylight that something fluttered softly
about my head. The sound was like that produced by a large
night-moth, but soon I heard something strike the ground a few
feet away, and then a well-known cluck convinced me that my
visitor was a Whip-poor-will. The bird came nightly while I
remained in the woods, and each morning before daylight it flew
around my head-net until it had caught all the mosquitoes
there."
Eaton (1914) says: "I have taken 36 full-grown moths from
the stomach of a single Whippoorwill which was killed early in the
evening, indicating that within an hour and a half he had killed
and devoured these full-grown moths, each one of which contained
hundreds of eggs."
Whippoorwills secure a large part of their food by capturing
night-flying insects on the wing, but Ernest Ingersoll (1920)
states that they also "have a way of balancing themselves
near a tree-trunk or barn-wall, picking ants and other small
provender off the bark; and even hunt for worms and beetles on the
ground, turning over the leaves to root them out."
Francis H. Allen says: "One evening I saw one take off
from the branch of an oak for what was probably its first feeding
flight of the night. It opened its mouth wide before
launching into the air."
Behavior.--In order to study the
whippoorwill at short range it is well to visit its haunts for a
few evenings and learn how the bird we are to watch behaves when
it wakes from its day's sleep. Whippoorwills move about over a
considerable territory when they come into the open for their
daily session of singing and feeding, they follow a route, evening
after evening, that varies little, and on the circuit are
stations--a stone wall, a low branch, or a certain spot on the
ground--where they are almost sure to stop and sing for a while.
If we seat ourselves near one of these stations where the
light, which will be almost gone when the bird arrives, will favor
our view, and where a dark background will obscure us from the
bird, we shall be able to see the whippoorwill at short range, for
if we sit motionless (no easy task, for mosquitoes will torture
us) the bird will pay little attention to us. We must sit quiet
and wait, following the song as it swings around the circuit, and
we must watch the spot where the bird is about to alight, for,
although in flight it looms big even in the dusk, when it comes to
rest, with a flip of wings it becomes a bit of dead wood, a clod
of earth, or vanishes altogether.
On several evenings late in May 1914, at Wilton, N.H., I
visited what appeared to be the whippoorwill headquarters--a dry
wood of small deciduous growth bordering a sloping field, on one
of which was a moist alder run that ran down to the edge of the
wood. When I arrived, between sunset and dark, wood thrushes and
veeries were singing, but before they quieted down for the night,
the whippoorwills (from one bird to two or three) began to sing,
always from the dry wood. They sang intermittently, and generally
after each series of whip-poor-wills their voices came from
a different part of the wood. By the time the light was becoming
uncertain (when one would have difficulty reading print) one bird,
leaving the wood, worked up the slope, passing the field either by
way of the alder run or by a wood of larger growth and an apple
orchard that bordered the higher sides of the field.
On each of the first evenings when I visited the ground, one
bird paused in the corner of the field where it joined the alder
run, and sang a few times, and on two of these evenings I was able
to approach the bird but not near enough to see it. The next
evening, therefore, as soon as the bird that was singing in the
wood began to change his position, I retired to this corner of the
field to await him and sat down on a bank where my figure would
not show against the sky. That evening was unusually dark and
cloudy. The bird left the wood by the lower side, and at 7:50 I
heard the song coming nearer and nearer through the alders behind
me. Then, two minutes later, it came with startling suddenness
from almost at my side. The bird sat on the bare ground at the
foot of the bank not 6 yards from where I sat. In bringing my
glass to bear upon him, I disturbed him, I think, for he flew
silently away. He alighted, however, on a rock and began to sing.
He was now 12 yards from me and on a level with my eyes. His side
was toward me, and he faced nearly in the direction from which he
had just flown. He sat flat on the stone with his head thrown
slightly backward and upward and, on alighting, immediately began
to sing.
The song at close range sounded like cuck-rhip-oor-ree,
the final note accented and held longer than the other three,
although the rhip was louder and longer than the oor.
The song was remarkably regular; twice, however, the bird
increased the tempo, and once he doubled one note--either the rhip
or the oor. After a pause the cuck was invariably
the first note given when he continued his song.
Even in the dim light the band of white across the throat was
clearly visible, and twice during each repetition of the cuck-rhip-oor-ree
this band was drawn backward--slightly at the cuck,
markedly during the final ree, when, I think, the beak was
open wide. Later, when the bird more nearly faced me, these
movements of the white band were less noticeable. The bird sat on
the rock for three or four minutes, singing almost continuously.
He sat absolutely still for the most part, but twice he moved
backward about an inch, as if each time he took a single backward
step. His departure, with no apparent cause, was noiseless and
abrupt, breaking the song at oor.
F. Seymour Hersey (1923), who watched with great care the
whippoorwill making its nightly round, says: "The time taken
to make this circuit varied from 25 to 30 minutes. I watched this
bird from several places of concealment and ascertained to my
satisfaction that it was the same individual that visited each of
these places and that the order given above was not varied. The
spot from which he sang was, in all cases, nearly the same, i.e.,
within a very few feet of the place where he was seen on a
previous evening."
Frank Bolles (1912) gives a remarkable picture, seen from
almost within arm's reach, of a singing whippoorwill. Mr. Bolles,
who was hidden near a stone to which the whippoorwill came
nightly, says:
Suddenly I hear a rather feeble whip, 12 times S. of me,
then silence and then a bird flies to the stone in front of my
face, coming low over the bushes and alighting with its tail
towards me. It squeaks or clicks three times, and I fear it
suspects me and is giving a slight alarm note, but the next moment
it begins the piercing 'quip o'rip' slightly raising its head and
dipping its tail each time it makes the sound. The head rises on
the 'quip' and falls on the 'rip.' The wings do not move, nor the
body save by a slight tipping. I could see the bird's outline
perfectly against the white background of the shingled barn on
which the moonlight fell fully.
When the whippoorwill comes out in the dusk for its evening
round, alighting on a stone wall, on the ground, or on a big
horizontal branch high in a tall tree, we may sometimes catch
sight of it against the sky, as it flies from one station to
another. In the air the whippoorwill does not resemble the
nighthawk at all. Its wings are broad and, compared to those of
the nighthawk, short, and it moves them with an easy sweep, with
none of the nighthawk's jerkiness. When we see it flying steadily
across an open field, it suggests an owl moving through the gloom
on its broad, silent wings.
Taverner and Swales (1907) give a remarkable description of the
flight of a whippoorwill seen under such circumstances at Point
Pelee, Ontario. They say:
One evening, just as the dusk was darkening into night, a
Whip-poor-will was heard near the camp. We stole out, and the bird
was located on a large bare walnut tree in the open bush where,
looking up against the still faintly illuminated sky, it could be
plainly made out, sitting lengthwise, as is their fashion, on a
rather large and almost horizontal branch. It remained perfectly
motionless except for an occasional jerk of its white blotched
tail, when it gave vent intermittently to a guttural "gluck."
These notes were repeated at irregular intervals of perhaps half a
minute, several times and then, without start or warning, it
launched away into the air, starting off immediately at full
speed, with a drop that carried it in a large, even circle half
way to the ground, and then up on the same curve, to vanish in the
gloom of the trees. Then it appeared on the other side, swinging
down on fixed wings in great elliptical curves as though whirled
from the end of a cord, perfectly silent in flight and threading
the dusky mazes of the tree tops with the utmost confidence and
precision. Here and there it rapidly wheeled, without an apparent
stroke of the wing, now coming into view in the lower arc of its
great circling, and then vanishing silently again on the upward
sweep on the other side. As suddenly as it started, it ceased in
the middle of a swing and, while the eyes vainly searched for the
dark object along the continuation of its course, it was seated
again on the branch from which it first sprang, silent and still.
This was repeated several times, and then it was joined by
another, and the two circled about like great soft, gliding bats
until the sky above grew so dark that their movements could no
longer be watched.
Several writers mention the fearlessness of the whippoorwill,
or perhaps its failure to recognize man as a danger. For example,
Bendire (1895) quotes E. A. McIlhenny, who says: "These birds
are very tame, for on two occasions, while sitting still in the
twilight to observe the movements of some Owls, I have had them
come so close that I could have caught them. On one occasion one
lit on my knee, and another on my foot as it was extended before
me." And H. E. Tuttle (1911) says: "Once I watched two
males fighting and singing at intervals on a fallen birch sapling.
I was quite close to them--within a yard--but they did not seem to
regard me as dangerous, and when I tired to imitate the guttural
noises they were making, they circled round my head so closely
that one touched me with his wings. In the darkness I was probably
no more than a charred stump."
C. W. G. Eifrig (1919) mentions "a unique experience"
with a whippoorwill, which, displaying unexpected aggressiveness,
darted repeatedly at his head.
It has been surmised that the whippoorwill uses its capacious
mouth to carry its eggs, and even its young, out of danger when
its nest has been discovered. There is no satisfactory evidence
that the bird employs its mouth in this way, but it has been seen,
on two occasions at least, carrying a young bird through the air
held between its legs. J. H. Bowles (1895) says: "I flushed a
whippoorwill that rose with a baby bird clutched between her
thighs," and Bendire (1895) quotes H. W. Flint as
follows: "I once, and only once, saw a female (the male is
never present at the nest) carry a young bird about a rod, but
cannot say she used her bill, and don't think she did, but I am
almost sure the claws and legs only were used, as the young was
hugged close to the body."
The whippoorwill is fond of taking dust baths. When driving
after dark we sometimes catch sight of one as it starts up from
its bath on a country road, and, as it flies off and our
headlights pick it up, the white tail feathers, if the bird is a
male, shine out for an instant. Forbush (1927) says: "Mr.
Stanley H. Bromley of Southbridge, Massachusetts, tells me that a
farmer there placed a large tray of dry wood ashes on the ground,
and whippoorwills came there at night to dust in it."
Wilson (1831) states: "The inner edge of the middle claw
is pectinated, and, from the circumstances of its being frequently
found with small portions of down adhering to the teeth, is
probably employed as a comb to rid the plumage of its head of
vermin."
Voice.--If the whippoorwill
"should sing by day, when every goose is cackling," the
song might lose some of its witchery; we do not know; the bird
sings in the dark, or when darkness is coming on fast, and the
singer is invisible or almost invisible among the shadows. The
song at a little distance comes to the ear as a penetrating
whisper of the bird's name, repeated perfectly regularly, time
after time with scarcely a pause between, at a rather rapid
rate--about once a second. The fourth note, a cluck before
the whip-poor-will, is heard usually only when the bird is
fairly near us, although we may hear it at a distance of 200 yards
under favorable circumstances. The syllable will carries
farthest of all the syllables.
It is rare to hear any material variation in the song, but
there are individual birds that regularly sing an unusual form,
and sometimes a bird will introduce occasionally one abnormal
phrase into his singing.
Simeon Pease Cheney (1891), speaking from the point of view of
music, says: "In the courageous repetition of his name he
accents the first and last syllables, the last most; always
measuring his song with the same rhythm, while very considerably
varying the melody--which latter fact is discovered only by most
careful attention. Plain, simple, and stereotyped as his song
appears, marked variations are introduced in the course of it. The
whippoorwill uses nearly all the intervals in the natural scale,
even the octave. I have never detected a chromatic tone."
Describing altercations between two or more birds, he says:
These altercations are sometimes very amusing. Three
whippoorwills, two males and a female, indulged in them for
several evenings one season, in my garden. They came just at dark,
and very soon a spirited contest began. Frequently they flew
directly upward, one at a time. Occasionally one flew down into
the patch near me, put out his wings, opened his big mouth, and
hissed like a goose disturbed in the dark. But, the most peculiar,
the astonishing feature of the contention was the finale. Toward
the close of the trial of speed and power, the unwieldy name was
dropped, and they rattled on freely with the same rhythm that the
name would have required, alternating in their rushing triplets,
going faster and faster, louder and louder, to the end.
The bird is remarkable on account of the regularity of its song
and the great number of times it repeats the whip-poor-will
without a pause. From 50 to 100 repetitions are not uncommon.
Forbush (1927) says: "John Burroughs, however, made a count
which so far as I know exceeds all others. He records that he
heard a bird 'lay upon the back of poor will' 1088 blows with only
a rarely perceptible pause here and there, as if to take
breath."
F. Seymour Hersey (1923) writes: "The Whip-poor-will sings
most continuously from dusk till about 9:30 p.m. and from 2:00
a.m. till dawn. During the intervening hours only an occasional
song is heard. The song season lasts from their arrival in spring
until late July or early August. Then there is a marked falling
off in the number of singing birds heard until toward the end of
August or early in September an increase in the number of singers
is again noted. The songs of these late birds often lack the
energy that characterizes the spring performance but a good many
continue to sing until they leave for the south. My latest singing
bird was noted September 24, 1901." These dates refer to
eastern Massachusetts.
Of the possibility of the female singing, he says "June 15
a Whip-poor-will alighted on the fence and uttered its 'chuck'
note, which usually precedes the regular song, repeating it a
number of times but not giving a note of the usual
'Whip-poor-will' call. It also did the same while on the wing.
This bird was supposed to be a female as no conspicuous light area
was visible on the tail. If so, she was capable of singing the
same as the male for I later heard and saw her sing, both from the
fence and while on the ground in the middle of the road. She
finally flew and was followed by another bird which may have been
her mate."
Of the whippoorwill's minor notes, we have seen above that the
growling gr-gr-gr or gaw-gaw-gaw is presumably
associated with courtship. I have never heard the note except when
two (or more) birds were together, on or near the ground. This
note suggests a little a note of the female woodcock, which is
used under similar circumstances. The whirring whup-whup-whirr
is evidently an alarm note.
A. Dawes DuBois (1911) mentions two other notes, evidently of
alarm. He says: "She fluttered from the spot as she had done
the previous day, but this time uttering a very low hissing or
'soughing' sound," and again, "She kept vigilant watch,
however, at a short distance, moving about near the ground with a
remarkably noiseless flight but uttering a 'chip' or 'whit'
similar or that of a domestic chick."
If we are outdoors at the end of the day, when the sun has gone
down and all the ways are darkened, if we are walking along a
quiet country road fringed by woods and open fields, or, in a
canoe, are drifting down a stream flowing softly past
farmland--pastures, stone walls, or orchards--and if we listen,
what do we hear? If it is summer, the bird songs are gradually
fading away as the birds fall asleep, the robin chorus lessens
when the light grows dim, and when it is almost dark a field
sparrow may sing for the last time before night comes. If it is
autumn we hear little bird song, only a short period of chipping
and clucking before the birds settle for the night and after that
only the insects that will sing the night through. But let us
listen. Was that a whippoorwill? Do we hear a whippoorwill, or do
we imagine we hear one because the scene has changed to a world of
shadows--the whippoorwill's world--and association has brought the
bird to our mind; and its song has come to our ears! The song is
faint and comes from far away. Perhaps we did not hear it; perhaps
there was no song to hear.
This is a peculiarity of the whippoorwill's song; it is so
bound up with association that we are sometimes misled. It is the
same with the bluebird when we listen for its song over the brown
fields of March.
Field marks.--The whippoorwill
and the nighthawk appear very much alike when sitting either on
the ground or along a horizontal branch of a tree, for in such
situations it is difficult to see the points where the two birds
differ. The whippoorwill is bristly about the mouth; the nighthawk
is not. The tips of the whippoorwill's folded wings do not come to
the end of the rounded tail, whereas the nighthawk's wings project
beyond the forked tail. The whippoorwill has a narrow line of
white on the upper breast. The corresponding mark on the nighthawk
is broader and includes the throat. Perhaps the best mark for
diagnosis is the pale, barred sides of the nighthawk. For purposes
of field identification this part of the whippoorwill may be said
to be unbarred.
In the air the distinguishing mark of the nighthawk is the
conspicuous spot of white in the wing. The whippoorwill lacks this
mark. The flight of the two birds (see above) is very different
and identifies them at a glance.
The chuck-will's widow, although similar to the whippoorwill in
plumage, is a much larger bird.
Enemies.--The clearing away of a
large part of the North American wilderness during the past two
centuries or so has not materially affected the whippoorwill; it
drove the bird back from the settlements a little way, farther and
farther as the towns grew in extent and became the great cities of
today, but at the present time, not far beyond the city limits,
whippoorwills find miles of country wild and secluded enough for
their breeding purposes. Fifteen miles from the city of Boston,
Mass., for example, as well as within a mile or two of many small
towns in the state, the bird is still abundant, nesting on the dry
wooded ridges and eskers.
This ability to flourish as man advanced into the country, when
so many birds failed to hold their own, may be accounted for by
the habits and equipment of the whippoorwill, which, when it moves
about, is "bescreened in night" and is so obscurely
colored that we may say "the mask of night is on its
face" even in the daytime, as it lies motionless on a carpet
of dead leaves.
If the bird should be discovered and attacked, we may imagine
how often the whippoorwill, with its marvelous powers of flight,
may escape hawk, owl, or fox.
Fall.--We rarely see whippoorwills in
autumn, but as we hear them sing not infrequently at this season
we know that they sometimes linger in New England almost to the
end of September. A time when hard frosts are at hand, which will
either kill the insects or hasten them into retirement.
Taverner and Swales (1907) report an unusual gathering of
whippoorwills on Point Pelee, Ontario. They say: "In our
various September visits we have usually found them more or less
common, but at that season they are much quieter, and seldom do
more than call a few times in the early evening and then cease.
Sometimes one will be heard again through the night, but more
often not. September, 1905, beginning the 4th, we saw from one to
six until the 13th, when a great flight of them appeared on the
Point. That day, in the red cedar thickets near the extremity of
the Point, we flushed thirty between twelve and half-past one in
the afternoon."
Winter.--George Nelson, who has
known the whippoorwill for years in its winter quarters on the
east coast of Florida, tells me that the bird is pretty evenly
distributed in the country about Sebastian, frequenting chiefly
the ridges and hammocks where, during the day, it rests on the
ground or on the trunk of a fallen tree. Not infrequently, as Mr.
Nelson has been driving after dark along U.S. Route 1, a bird has
started up from almost beneath the wheels of his car and has flown
off in the glare of the headlights. He says that the bird is not
in song during winter, but just before it starts northward, late
in March, it sings for a few evenings, and that its departure
invariably coincides with the arrival of the chuck-will's-widow.
Each evening during my stay at Sebastian with Mr. Nelson in
mid-February 1931, just as it was beginning to grow dark, a
whippoorwill appeared in the dooryard, a clearing in a dense
hammock on the shore of the Indian River. The bird perched
lengthwise here and there on the thick limbs of a live oak, well
up in the big tree, but clearly visible from the ground, and made
frequent sallies out into the air, sometimes sweeping clear away
from the tree, sometimes only flitting among its branches,
returning either to the perch from which it had flown, or to
another one. Presumably these sallies were made in pursuit of
flying insects--there was a businesslike air in the bird's
behavior--but there was no sound of any snapping of the beak
audible to me as I stood near the foot of the tree. Our first
intimation that the bird had arrived from its day's seclusion was
the sound of a low chuck repeated at short intervals. The
bird gave this note from its perch and from the air; it was very
similar to the introductory note in the whippoorwill song, but a
little sharper. As the bird flew about, it sailed a good deal,
wheeling around with some tilting from one side to the other, the
wings held out straight and flat from the body with no, or very
little, bend at the wrist joint. I was strangely reminded of the
flight of a shearwater--the whippoorwill seeming to avoid the
branches as the shearwater avoids the tops of the waves, tilting
over them as it sails.
This was when the bird was moving slowly, but at times it
increased its speed and executed the most intricate maneuvers,
appearing and disappearing among the branches, ever changing its
direction, either sailing or flapping its wings, swerving sharply
from side to side, heeling over till one wing pointed nearly to
the zenith and the other to the earth, then snapping back to an
even keel. It shot straight upward, dived head downward, and
doubled back, twisting and gyrating with such rapidity that it
seemed to be tumbling about in the air. The turns were so quick
and the pace so reckless that the bird appeared in a frenzy and in
danger of dashing itself against a limb of the tree, yet from the
midst of these complicated evolutions it instantly righted itself
and, with a flash of wings, settled flat and motionless on its
perch.
Although there was the appearance of a lack of caution in these
mad dashes among the network of branches, we were convinced, as we
watched, that the bird governed its movements with perfect
precision, with the acme of coordination.
The flight seemed silent; even when the bird passed within a
few feet of my head, I heard no sound. It appeared to be alone,
and after remaining for ten minutes or so, it flew off, and we
heard or saw no more of it until the next evening.
When we flashed a light on it, the eye gleamed back a bright
orange.
Mr. Nelson said that earlier in the winter the behavior of the
bird had been different. It came about the house every evening for
a while, visiting a small tree (Assonia) to which insects
were attracted by big clusters of open flowers. This tree was
about 10 feet tall with large leaves but plenty of open space
between the branches. The bird went to the ground after each
flight into the tree, and it appeared to Mr. Nelson that the
insects, as they flew among the flowers, could best be seen
against the sky from this point. The bird did not return to this
tree after the flowers had faded.
During a second visit to Florida, more than a month later, I
saw, presumably, the same bird again. It acted exactly as it had
before, perching, indeed, on the identical spot on the limb of the
live oak that had been a favorite perch in February. On this
occasion also only one bird visited the tree, and while feeding
was silent except for the low chuck. On March 24, after the
bird had been to the tree and had gone away, I heard him singing
off in the hammock. This singing on his winter quarters indicated
that he felt spring was here, and it was time to leave for his
summer home in the north.
Whip-poor-will*
Caprimulgus vociferus [Eastern
Whippoorwill]
Contributed by Winsor
Marrett Tyler
*Original Source: Bent,
Arthur Cleveland. 1940. Smithsonian Institution United
States National Museum Bulletin 176: 163-183. United States
Government Printing Office
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