then silence and then a bird flies to the stone in front
of my face, coming low over the bushes and alighting with
its tall 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 in 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 tried 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 firmly _between
her thighs_,” and Bendire (1895) quotes H. W. Flint as follows: “I
once, and once only, saw a female (the male is never present at the
nest) carry a young bird about a rod, but can not 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 to 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 slowly past
farmland--pastures, stone walls, 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 a
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
and 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.
DISTRIBUTION
_Range._--United States and southern Canada east of the Rocky
Mountains, south in winter to El Salvador.
_Breeding range._--The breeding range of the eastern whippoorwill
extends =north= rarely to central Saskatchewan (Prince Albert);
southern Manitoba (Gypsumville, Lake St. Martin, Shoal Lake, and
Winnipeg); northern Michigan (McMillan and Sault Ste. Marie);
southern Ontario (Sudbury, Algonquin Park, and Ottawa); southern
Quebec (Montreal and Sherbrooke); rarely northern Maine (Presque
Isle); and rarely southern New Brunswick (Scotch Lake). The
=eastern= limits extend southward from this point along the
Atlantic coast to eastern Virginia (Ashland and Lawrenceville);
hence southwest through the interior to North Carolina (Raleigh
and Highrock); and Georgia (Young Harris and Atlanta). =South= to
northern Georgia (Atlanta); northern Alabama (Lookout Mountain and
Sand Mountain); central Arkansas (Clinto and Big Piney Creek);
and Texas (Troup). =West= to eastern Texas (Troup); northwestern
Arkansas (Rogers and Pearidge); eastern Kansas (Ottawa and Topeka);
eastern Nebraska (Peru, Omaha, and Neligh); southeastern South
Dakota (Vermillion); Minnesota (St. Cloud, Fosston, and Williams);
southwestern Manitoba (Treesbank); and rarely central Saskatchewan
(Prince Albert).
Closely related subspecies, Stephens’s whippoorwill (_A. v.
arizonae_), is found chiefly in Mexico, but in summer it has been
recorded =north= to Arizona (Bradshaw Mountains, Sierra Ancha,
Mount Graham, and the Chiricahua Mountains); New Mexico (Turkey
Creek, Blank Range, and Fort Bayard); and southwestern Texas
(Chisos Mountains).
_Winter range._--The winter range of the _entire_ species is
=north= to southern Sonora (Alamos); southern Texas (San Patricio
and Port Arthur); rarely Louisiana (Baton Rouge); southern Alabama
(Fairhope); northwestern Florida (Pensacola and St. Marks);
and east-central South Carolina (Mount Pleasant). =East= to
east-central South Carolina (Mount Pleasant); Georgia (Savannah);
eastern Florida (Amelia Island, Orlando, Lake Worth, and Royal
Palm Hammock); British Honduras (Toledo District); and Costa Rica
(probably San Jose). =South= to Costa Rica (probably San Jose and
Puntarenas); El Salvador (Rio San Miguel, Puerto del Triunfo, and
La Libertad); Oaxaca (Tehuantepec); and southern Jalisco (Colima
Volcano). =West= to Jalisco (Colima Volcano and Bolanos Volcano);
probably western Durango (Salto); and southern Sonora (Alamos).
_Spring migration._--Early dates of spring arrival are:
North Carolina--Louisburg, March 19; Weaverville, March
23; Raleigh, March 28. Virginia--Variety Mills, March 29;
Lawrenceville, March 30. District of Columbia--Washington,
April 1. Maryland--Mardela Springs, March 29; Cambridge,
April 12. Pennsylvania--Williamsport, April 21; Berwyn, April
22; Philadelphia, April 22. New Jersey--Vineland, April 11;
Morristown, April 23. New York--Jay, April 14; Geneva, April
25; Rochester, April 29. Connecticut--Jewett City, April 23;
Hartford, April 23. Massachusetts--Boston, April 13; Taunton,
April 20; Wilmington, April 26. Vermont--Wells River, April 25;
St. Johnsbury, May 5; Rutland, May 7. New Hampshire--Charlestown,
April 26; Tilton, May 2. Maine--Portland, April 26; Phillips, May
2. Quebec--Montreal, April 25. New Brunswick--Scotch Lake, May
7. Mississippi--Suffolk, March 22. Arkansas--Delight, March 29;
Clinton, March 30. Tennessee--Athens, March 24. Kentucky--Eubank,
April 2; Bowling Green, April 6. Missouri--Palmyra, April 9; St.
Louis, April 13. Illinois--Chicago, April 13; Port Byron, April
23. Indiana--Fort Wayne, April 11; Bicknell, April 12; Lafayette,
April 16. Ohio--Columbus, April 13; Wauseon, April 16; Youngstown,
April 18. Michigan--Detroit, April 15; Sault Ste. Marie, May 3.
Ontario--Ottawa, April 25; Toronto, April 28. Iowa--Keokuk, April
11; Sabula, April 16; Iowa City, April 18. Wisconsin--Milwaukee,
April 21; Madison, April 26. Minnesota--Lanesboro, April 17; Elk
River, April 24; St. Vincent, May 11. Texas--Grapevine, April 7.
Kansas--Onaga, April 19; Topeka, April 20. North Dakota--Larimore,
May 20. Manitoba--Aweme, May 1; Raeburn, May 1.