A valued pet of ours is the whippoorwill or _Antrostomus vociferus_.
When most of the other songsters have tucked their heads under their
wings our whippoorwill wakes up to the business of the night.
First, he darts about catching insects and moths for his babies'
breakfast--for this is their breakfast time--or if his babies are not
hatched he takes the insects to the faithful mother-bird on the nest.
After this is done he thinks his business cares are over, and he feels
free to enjoy himself.
Our especial whippoorwill always selects the same spot, year after
year, just about ten yards from our front door, in a clear white space
on the shell-walk, and there, squatted on the ground and facing us as
we sit on the piazza in the moonlight, he vociferously demands that we
"whip poor Will." This demand he keeps up for a minute or two. Finding
that we do not intend to heed his request, as our sturdy six-year-old
Will objects, he commences a low muttering kind of grumbling.
Suddenly he has a new idea and he now orders us to "Chuck Will's widow!
Chuck Will's widow!" but this order, too, goes unheeded, as our Will
has no widow, and if he had why should we chuck her?
Now he does some more grumbling and finally flies away. We had almost
forgotten him, when back he comes and squats in the same place. First
he gives a low "Chuck, chuck;" then cries out shrilly, "You free
Wheeler! You free Wheeler!" We know of no Wheeler who needs freeing, so
again we cannot comply with his wishes.
Then, as if disgusted with our unresponsiveness, he flies up in a
near-by orange tree where he laments somewhat like an Irishman: "O
whirr-r, whirro! O whirr-r, whirro!"
He keeps this up so long that it causes some sleepy boy to say: "I wish
that old bull-bat would be still." And sometimes the boy feels tempted
to get up and drive him away, but he remembers in time that this
feathered friend rids us of many obnoxious insects. For this reason the
southern whippoorwill, or bull-bat, is protected by law in many of the
states.
We know where _our_ whippoorwill nests every year in May, and we
often pay the mother-bird a visit in order to get a peep at her brown
speckled eggs, and later at her two brown babies; but we never bother
them, contenting ourselves with taking their picture with a kodak.
This last is very difficult to do, for mamma whippoorwill always
selects a dense, shady part of the woods for her motherly duties. The
nest is flat on the ground, generally under a palmetto leaf, which
keeps off the rain. It is composed of dry leaves which seem to have
been just scratched together, and is not noticeable unless the bird is
there. Even then, the brown color of the bird blends with that of the
ground and leaves, so that it takes sharp eyes to detect her.
When the young birds first leave the nest they sprawl about in a
comical manner. When in repose they squat flat on the ground, with
wings spread out to the fullest extent, and they keep up a rolling
motion with their bodies from side to side, for all the world as if
they wanted to roll over, but were prevented from doing so by the
position of their large wings.