Caribbean lowlands of Central America, kindly lent me, Alexander
F. Skutch devotes considerable space to his studies of the care
and feeding of the young of the local race of the pauraque
(_Nyctidromus albicollis albicollis_). As the habits of the
different races of this species probably do not differ materially,
it seems pertinent to include here some of his remarks on this
subject. He says that “during the day male and female take turns
on the eggs, relieving each other every two or three hours. The
male is usually found incubating in the early morning. At night,
I have found only the female covering the eggs.” Other species of
goatsuckers have been reported as moving their eggs to a place
of safety after being disturbed, but he found no evidence that
this species does so, saying: “I have given pauraques all kinds
of incentives to move their eggs to a safer place, but they have
never shifted their positions even a few inches as a result of my
interference. The case was quite different when I moved the eggs
from the spot which the birds had selected as their nest.” In this
case, he had moved the eggs twice, once only a few inches and once
a foot away from an area infested by fire ants; but each time the
parents moved them back again to their chosen spot; the result was
that, as soon as the eggs began to hatch, the chicks were destroyed
by the ants. He did not see how the eggs were moved; probably they
were pushed along with the feet and body, as the nighthawk has been
seen to do.
Both parents took turns in brooding the young throughout the day,
relieving each other at intervals of two or three hours, as they
did on the eggs. As the young were fed in the dusk or deeper
darkness of evening, it was only after several trials that he
was able to see the performance clearly. He writes: “It was dark
now, but at the critical moment I pushed the button of a powerful
flashlight. The mother was resting on the ground in her customary
position, looking toward me with eyes that shone like rubies in the
beam of light. The little ones stood on tiptoe in front of her,
their necks stretched up, bringing their heads on a level with her
mouth. One was being fed while the other waited impatiently for its
turn. Though her _mouth_ was so big she could easily have swallowed
her nestling whole, her little _bill_ was inserted into its widely
open mouth, just as with a hummingbird, and with distended throat
and convulsive movements of the body she regurgitated into it the
insects she had captured. When she had given sufficient to the
first one, she paused with head erect, clearly much alarmed by the
light, but the second continued its silent importunities and the
parent yielded despite her fears, feeding it in the same manner.
Then she went off to hunt more insects.
“Presently one of the parents entered the thicket again, but
instead of going to the youngsters it settled on the ground
behind the blind, fully 20 feet from them, and began the low
croaking-clucking call, which draws them as the magnet draws
the floating needle. The two- and three-day-old bantlings drew
themselves up and began hopping bravely toward the voice, peeping
as they went through the darkness. Directly in their path was a
young banana plant, which I had felled in clearing a place for the
blind. The large, slippery leaves lay in a tangled mass that loomed
above them; the Alps formed no more insurmountable obstacle to the
advance of Hannibal’s army than this confusing barrier to the young
pauraques. Dauntless as the renowned Carthaginian, they pushed
resolutely onward, lured by the continued calls. I completely
lost sight of them in the obscurity, but for many minutes their
weak cries emerged from the dark mass. At length they descended
victorious into the plains of Italy, and henceforth their path,
although not free from obstacles, was comparatively easy. Finally
they found a haven beneath their parent’s sheltering wings.”
On this and previous occasions Mr. Skutch discovered that the
young pauraques were perfectly capable of locomotion, even at an
early age, in response to warning calls from their parents. He saw
no evidence that the adults ever carried them in their capacious
mouths, as other species of the Caprimulgidae have been reported
to do, or assisted them to move in any other way. He says that
“during the day male and female take turns on the eggs, relieving
each other every two or three hours. The male is usually found
incubating in the early morning. At night, I have found only the
female covering the eggs.”
_Plumages._--The downy young pauraque is as unique among the
Caprimulgidae as are the eggs. It is completely covered with fine,
soft down, leaving nothing exposed but the tip of the bill and the
feet. The colors are rich and contrasting; the forehead, crown,
and nape are “pinkish buff”; the lores, cheeks, and auriculars are
“mikado brown”; the back and rump are “sayal brown,” with a central
band of “pinkish buff”; the chin and throat are pale “pinkish
cinnamon,” and the remainder of the under parts are “pinkish buff.”
Ridgway (1914) describes a female nestling, not yet fully grown,
as follows: “General color of upper parts pale brownish gray,
very minutely vermiculated or stippled with darker; pileum and
scapulars with scattered roundish and subtriangular small spots
of black; interscapular region clouded or blotched with black;
under parts light grayish buff, narrowly barred with dusky on
chest, more broadly barred with the same on throat, breast, and
sides, the abdomen and under tail-coverts immaculate; thighs
uniform light fawn color; remiges and rectrices (not fully grown)
apparently as in adult female.” Of a young female, fully grown, he
says: “Primaries and rectrices as in adult female; pileum spotted,
instead of streaked, with black, the spots mostly of broadly
triangular form; back also heavily spotted, or blotched, instead of
streaked, with black; scapulars without buff margins; barring of
under parts much less sharply defined, less dark in color; throat
band light dull buff, barred with blackish.”
Mr. Sennett (1888) says of the young male: “White wing-patch of
male mixed with buff; white on tail not so sharply defined, nor
does it extend so near to base as in mature birds. The outer
tail-feathers are barred and streaked with brown and buff. White
throat-patch smaller and barred sparingly with black and buff. In
this immature stage the sexes are not easily determined aside from
the difference in the white tail-patches; in the males the white
on second feather from outside is never less than 2.5 inches long,
while in the females the corresponding patch is about one inch in
length.”
The above descriptions evidently refer to the juvenal, or first
plumage, which is largely replaced in summer, July and August, by a
first winter plumage. In this the contour plumage is much like that
of the adult, the spots on the crown and back being replaced by
streaks; but the juvenal wings and tail are retained; the sexes are
much alike in this plumage but can always be distinguished by the
amount of white in the tail.
I have seen birds in this plumage in October, December, and March,
from which I infer that it is worn until the first postnuptial molt
the following summer. Mr. Sennett (1888) thought that “at least
two years must elapse before the perfect plumage is attained”; but
it seems more likely that the first postnuptial molt produces a
plumage that is practically adult, except for some dusky mottling
on the tips and edges of the white tail feathers, and some buffy
intrusion of the white wing patch, which may indicate that the
full purity of these white areas is not attained at the first
postnuptial molt.
Dickey and van Rossem (1938) say: “Young birds which have assumed
the postjuvenal plumage may be distinguished from adults by
the narrower, more pointed, and usually impurely colored tail
feathers and by the buffy edgings and mottlings on the tips of the
primaries. The juvenal primaries which are worn until the bird
enters the second fall (first annual) molt, are from 5 to 10 mm.
shorter than those of adults. Males, at least, breed the first
spring as shown by dissection of several specimens. The annual molt
of adults takes place in August and September.”
There are two distinct color phases in the adult plumage, a
gray-brown phase and a tawny phase, mainly recognizable in the
coloration of the upper surface. Ridgway (1914) says of the former,
“pileum, hindneck, and interscapular region grayish brown,” and of
the tawny phase, “general coloration of upper parts much more tawny
or ochraceous, the general color of the pileum varying from fawn
color to mars brown or russet.”
_Food._--Bendire (1895) says that “the food of Merrill’s Pauraque,
like that of the rest of the _Caprimulgidae_, consists mainly of
night-flying insects, such as moths, beetles, etc. The crop of a
specimen shot by Mr. H. P. Attwater, near Rockport, Texas, was
filled with fireflies, _Photinus pyralis_?”
On several occasions, Mr. Burrows (Bendire, 1895) observed a
pauraque “perched upon the extremity of a low, dead limb, or on the
top of a bush. At these times I found that the bird was watching
for food, and at intervals would leave the perch, dart off a short
distance as if in pursuit of an insect, and as quickly return, in
very much the same manner that the Whip-poor-will is accustomed
to do. I believe that these birds are strictly insectivorous; but
I have never made an examination of the stomach except in one
instance. The stomach of this bird, killed in January, showed parts
of the feet and wings of beetles and other insects.”
Three stomachs examined by Cottam and Knappen (1939) contained
parts of ant lions, stink bugs, soldier bugs, locusts, click
beetles, tiger beetles, ostomid beetles, twig borer, carrot muck
beetle, long-horned beetles, and traces of butterflies, moths,
bees, or wasps. Beetles made up 89 percent of the whole food.
_Behavior._--Mr. Burrows (Bendire, 1895) writes:
During the daytime the birds were commonly found on the
ground at the foot of a growth of bushes or among fallen
branches, and I have occasionally found them perched,
nighthawk-fashion, upon a low branch not more than a foot
from the ground. When closely approached, they dart quickly
forward in a zigzag course, dropping as suddenly to the
ground. This flight is short, usually not more than 50 or
80 feet, and when settled they commonly remain perfectly
quiet until again flushed. They have a peculiar way of
turning or facing about as they strike the ground, so that
they can better watch the approaching danger. They lie so
close that it is with great difficulty that they can be
detected, unless the spot is carefully marked. In a number
of instances, where the bird seemed to feel that it was
observed, I have had them go through a peculiar bowing
movement, resembling that of the Burrowing Owl, except that
the body is raised from its completely prostrate condition.
The pauraque has a relatively longer tarsus than our other members
of the goatsucker family; hence it is more active on its feet. Dr.
Frank M. Chapman (1896) observes: “I was surprised to learn how
rapidly these birds can run. On one occasion two lit within a few
feet of me when it was light enough to distinguish their movements.
They crouched close to the earth, sometimes running quickly and
with unexpected ease for a few steps, then turned their heads
sharply from side to side as though looking for insects. They would
also spring suddenly fifteen feet into the air to catch a passing
insect.”
_Voice._--Dr. Merrill (1878) writes: “Their notes are among
the most characteristic night sounds of the Lower Rio Grande,
and are constantly heard at evening during the summer months.
They consist of a repeated whistle resembling the syllables
_whew-whew-whew-whew-whe-e-e-e-e-w_, much stress being laid upon
the last, which is prolonged. The whole is soft and mellow, yet
can be heard at a great distance. The preliminary _whews_ vary
somewhat in number, and late in the season are often omitted
altogether.”
Mr. Burrows wrote to Major Bendire (1895): “At the approach of the
breeding season and as early as the middle of March the peculiar
whistle of the Pauraque becomes general, and along the lower Rio
Grande, where they are common, it may be heard on all sides. * * *
The birds begin to call as the dusk of evening comes on. The
commonest call is a long-drawn ‘ko, whe-e-e-e-e-w’, much prolonged,
and raised to a high pitch toward the last. This is repeated often
and with great energy, and on a still night may be heard at a long
distance. At other times the first syllable is omitted. Again it
is varied by a repetition of the first syllable, as ‘ko, ko, ko,
ko-whe-e-e,’ the first syllables repeated deliberately, and the
last not so long-drawn and suddenly cut short.” He also refers to a
short _put, put_ note, resembling one of the notes of a wild turkey.
The name of the pauraque is said to have been derived from a
fancied resemblance to one of its notes; the same is true of its
Mexican name, cuiejo.
_Winter._--The pauraque is a permanent resident in southern Texas
and farther south, and even as far north as the Nueces River. Mr.
Burrows found it “to be fairly common” during the winter and spring
of 1894. He met with it during the winter in Starr County, southern
Texas, and says: “When the nesting season is over the birds
remain quiet, and their peculiar whistling note is not heard with
regularity, and yet, on very warm nights during each of the winter
months, I have occasionally heard them. During the winter the birds
may be flushed from the dense thickets in the bottom lands.”
DISTRIBUTION
_Range._--Southern Texas and northeastern Mexico; not regularly
migratory.
The range of Merrill’s pauraque extends =north= to southern Texas
(Refugio County and Aransas County). =East= to Texas (Aransas
County, Corpus Christi, Rio Hondo, and Brownsville); eastern
Tamaulipas (Aldama, Altamira, and Tampico); and Veracruz (Mirador
and Jalapa). =South= to central Veracruz (Jalapa); and Puebla
(Metlaltoyuca and Tehuacan). =West= to southeastern Puebla
(Tehuacan); western Tamaulipas (Santa Leonor and Rio Cruz); and
Texas (Lomita, Neuces County, San Patricio County, and Refugio
County).
Closely allied races of this bird are found in Central and South
America.
_Egg dates._--Mexico: 9 records, March 22 to June 22.
Texas: 66 records, March 5 to June 26; 33 records, April 15 to May
16, indicating the height of the season.
CHORDEILES MINOR MINOR (Forster)
EASTERN NIGHTHAWK
PLATES 29–33
CONTRIBUTED BY ALFRED OTTO GROSS
HABITS
The nighthawk, because of its piercing calls and the extraordinary
evolutions and gyrations of its flight, attracts many persons, even
the casual observers who ordinarily pay no special attention to
birds. A bird so unique and striking, one that during its breeding
season plays such an important role in our experiences out of
doors, is destined to be the recipient of many common names.
Long before the white man came to America the nighthawk was well
known to the Indians, and we find it taking a prominent place in
their myths and traditions. Apparently the notes of this bird
appealed most, since the names chosen by the various tribes were
usually graphic allusions to the calls or to the characteristic
booming noise heard during the courtship season. To the tribes
along the Connecticut River this booming was the sound of the Shad
Spirit announcing to the shoals of shad, about to ascend the river,
of their impending fate. The nighthawk was known to the Seminoles
of Florida as “Ho-pil-car.” In the Milicite Indian Natural History
there is the name “Pik-teis-k wes,” and according to W. W.
Cooke (1884) the Chippewas not only had the name “Besh-que” for
the nighthawk but recognized it as a species distinct from the
whippoorwill, to which they gave the name “Gwen-go-wi-a.” That the
Chippewa Indians differentiated these two species is all the more
remarkable when we recall that this distinction was confused by
Catesby and the American ornithologists of the next 50 years who
followed him. It was Alexander Wilson who first noted that they
were distinct species.
When the first European settlers came to our coast they compared
the nighthawk and the whippoorwill with the nightjar of their old
homes, and hence we find this name in the earlier ornithological
writings used as a synonym for the American bird. In certain
districts of England and Scotland the nightjar is called the
goatsucker, a name that originated from the queer superstition that
this bird with its enormous mouth sucked the teats of goats. Like
the name nightjar the name goatsucker also crossed the Atlantic, as
is manifested by such names as long-winged goatsucker and Virginia
goatsucker to be found in the older books and papers dealing with
American birds. The name goatsucker is still applied to the order
and family but is seldom used today in designating the species.
In parts of the United States, especially in the South, nighthawks
are known as bats, since the birds are usually seen at dusk
when their erratic flight resembles somewhat that of the common
mammal. This resemblance linked with the bellowing or booming
sound produced by the wing feathers during the courtship plunge
has given source to the commonly used name bullbat. Audubon (1840)
used the synonym Virginia bat and stated that the French Creoles of
Louisanaknew the nighthawk by the metaphorical French name “crapau
volans,” or flying toad. In the Bahamas, as well as in certain
localities of America, a common local name is “pick-a-me-dick,” a
crude imitation of one of its notes. The name mosquito hawk was
well earned by one individual that, according to the Biological
Survey, had eaten 300 mosquitoes. Other names sometimes applied to
the nighthawk but less frequently than some of those previously
mentioned are pisk, pork and beans, will-o’-wisp, burnt-land bird,
and bird hawk.
The commonly accepted name nighthawk probably originated because
of the bird’s resemblance to the smaller hawks when observed in
flight. However, it has sometimes proved to be an unfortunate
choice, since to the layman it suggests a bird of the true hawk
type. This name on occasions has been a source of trouble to an
innocent bird as illustrated in the following cases. According to
B. H. Warren (1890) the Pennsylvania Game Commissioners, in their
interpretation of the Scalp Act of 1885, took the stand that they
were obliged to allow bounty on all nighthawks because they were
known as hawks. Mr. Warren also states that there is a somewhat
prevalent idea that nighthawks are destroyers of young poultry, the
name doubtless having given origin to the absurdity. The following
clipping taken from the Portland (Maine) Press is another example
of the way the name has misled well-meaning persons. “The Press
building acquired a new claim to distinction yesterday as the haunt
of wild fowl when janitor Phillip Ward, upon making an ascent to
the roof, discovered two hen hawk’s eggs there. Apparently some
bird of the genus so despised by farmers had found the top of
Portland’s skyscrapers the right kind of a nesting place, and had
laid her plans to hatch a few juvenile hen hawks up there. Janitor
Ward’s unexpected arrival put an end to such plans, however, and
farmers may rest assured that the breed of distasteful birds who
pillage their chicken yards is two the less.” Arthur H. Norton,
director of the Portland Society of Natural History, investigated
the story and found the victim to be an innocent nighthawk. Adverse
criticisms of the name nighthawk have been numerous but the name
although inappropriate is destined to persist.
_Spring._--The vanguard of the nighthawks in the spring migration
reaches Florida and the Gulf States about the middle of April.
There have been March arrivals reported, but these are exceptional.
Large flocks, some of them numbering thousands of individuals,
have been seen during May. Many of these southern records may be
representatives of the southern form, _Chordeiles minor chapmani._
It is not necessary to search the isolated retreats away from the
habitations of man for the first nighthawk arrivals. In fact, they
are more likely to appear in the midst of our populous cities and
towns, where they may be seen flying high above the graveled roofs
that later are to be the scene of their nesting activities.
_Courtship._--The courtship of the nighthawk is an ardent and
amorous performance on the part of the male. He may be seen at
twilight or early dawn uttering his sharp _peent_ calls as he flies
in wide circles sometimes hovering or soaring in the air high above
the proposed nesting site. At more or less regular intervals he
swoops down often within a few yards of his mate. Just as he seems
about to dash into the ground he makes an abrupt upward turn, the
vibrating primaries producing the well-known boom. After these
preliminary aerial performances the male alights on the ground or
graveled roof near the resting passive female. He now stands on his
feet instead of resting his body on the ground. His tail is widely
spread like a fan and wagged from side to side while the body is
given a peculiar rocking motion. The throat is frequently puffed
out, displaying a large white patch, which is ordinarily concealed
when he is at rest. Synchronized with the throat distension is the
uttering of guttural croaking notes. In producing these notes the
bird holds the beak tightly closed, so that the throat membrane
is distended by the pressure of the air emitted from the lungs.
Under these conditions the sound waves originating at the syrinx
beat against the tense membrane, producing notes of a striking
and peculiar resonant quality. These notes are not uttered under
ordinary conditions and constitute a very important part of the
courtship.
The female, as far as outward manifestations are concerned, does
not seem to be at all impressed by these extraordinary antics.
The male at times in seeming desperation flies directly over the
female uttering a sharp _peent_. He may then circle the female
several times but even to this she seems unmoved. At times, when
he approaches too near, the female will take a short flight,
alighting a few yards away. The male follows and the performance
described above is repeated. Eventually the courtship terminates in
copulation.
The aerial evolutions of the male, including the downward plunges
and “booming,” are continued throughout the nesting period, but
after the young are hatched his effervescent energies are directed
in part to securing food for his offspring. With regard to the
courtship of the nighthawk, Charles W. Townsend (1920b), who gave
the subject of the courtship of birds careful study, stated:
“The rapid headlong plunges of the nighthawk may be classed as a
display of motion, a form of the dance. Incidentally, and perhaps
accidentally at first, a loud booming sound is produced by the
rush of air through the wing feathers. This instrumental music is
now the important feature, although the dance is by no means a
negligible one.”
_Nesting._--The nesting site, according to the procedure of a pair
of nighthawks studied by me at Brunswick, Maine, is chosen by the
female. A banded female returned to the same nesting site on the
graveled roof of the high school building for four successive
years, although the males, during at least two seasons, were
different individuals.