ORDER MACROCHIRES: SWIFTS, WHIP-POOR-WILLS, ETC.
FAMILY CAPRIMULGIDÆ: GOATSUCKERS.
- Length
- 9-10 inches.
Male and Female:
- A long-winged bird of the twilight and night. Large mouth fringed with bristles. Plumage dusky and Owl-like, much spotted with black and gray. Wings beautifully mottled with shades of brown; lower half of the outer tail quills white in the male, but rusty in female.
- Note:
- "Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will;" repeated usually five times in succession, followed by a jarring noise during flight.
- Season:
- Late April to September. Common summer resident, except near the shore.
- Breeds:
- In all parts of its range, but most freely toward the northern portions.
- Nest:
- Builds none, but substitutes a mossy hollow in rock or ground.
- Eggs:
- 2, creamy-white, freely marked, and spotted with brown.
- Range:
- Eastern United States to the Plains, south to Guatemala.
This weird bird, with its bristling, fly-trap mouth, who sleeps all day and prowls by night, comes to us late in April, if the season is warm, clamouring and waking strange echoes in the bare woods, and in early September, mute and mys-terious, he gathers his flocks and moves silently on, for the Whip-poor-will has not at any time even a transient home to abandon; like the pilgrims of old, the earth is his only bed.
This bird is somewhat erratic in its local distribution. It is noted here as a common summer resident, yet is seldom heard within two miles of the beach, except in the spring migration, and I have never but once found it in the garden. After crossing the Greenfield Hill Ridge, the numbers increase, and in the wooded hollow below Redding Ridge they are so numerous as to make the early night noisy.
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