“Peent” is the
vocalization of the Common Nighthawk.
Recently I stumbled upon
the nest of a Common Nighthawk while on a rooftop of an office building. I knew that I had found a Nighthawk
nest site because the mother was dragging her wings on the ground and running
erratically away from the site trying to draw me away from her babies. Once I
realized what she was up to I paused and looked to the ground to try and find
the nest site and just a few feet to my left sat two eggs near a discarded piece
of wood. After a few photos of the nest site I left quietly so as not to
disturb her. In the weeks to come I frequently visited the site to see and
observe the development of the young and their mother.
The female
Nighthawk trying to decoy me away from her eggs
The behaviors of the
Nighthawk are very different from most birds. The physical appearance of the
Common Nighthawk is described as a small bird with long slender wings, large
head, and a small bill but with a large gaping mouth when opened and lined with
bristles to help capture prey. The coloration is filled with different shades
of greys, browns, and white and is designed to camouflage and break up their
appearance.
Often times Nighthawks are
seen near baseball fields, well lit parking lots, and any area with bright
lights at dusk and again at dawn where they feed on up to 600 individual flying
invertebrates a night.
This bird species has one
of the largest migration patterns of any North American Bird. Nighthawks travel
South in the winter to as far as Chile and then travel back as far north as
Alaska in the summertime.
The breeding season is in
mid spring to early summer, and the males will court females by flying upwards
of 700 feet and diving to the ground, opening their wings, sometimes just feet
from the ground. As the males open their wings they create a deep booming noise
that is similar to the noise of a car passing by at a high speed.
Nighthawks blend in very well with the
gravel they choose for their nesting area
Normally only producing 2
pale colored eggs speckled with grey, the females will typically nest in an
open area with no nesting material--on gravel roof tops, in urban settings, and
in open fields or near water in more uninhabited areas.
Nighthawk chick
and an unhatched egg—even from a few feet away they're almost impossible to see
I have to say that keeping
an eye on the two little ones was truly a gratifying experience. Astonishingly
a very short experience--from the time the eggs were laid to the time the two
were making short flights on the rooftop was only 30 days.
The last time I saw the
babies was about a week ago. I had walked around an air conditioning unit and
spooked them so they took off and caught the wind and were out of sight in no
time.
Submitted by Adam Triska,
World Bird Sanctuary
Naturalist/Trainer
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