Nighthawks able to survive well in urban setting

I first learned about the common nighthawk while I was working in New York City.

As a veterinary technician, I had built up a base of clients for whom I would cat-sit while they were away. One owner had a penthouse apartment in a building up around 23rd street and 8th Avenue.

This would be my last stop after visiting other clients’ pets, or after an evening of working late. It would always be dark by the time I arrived. Weary, hot and sweaty after traveling crowded subway trains and walking dirty city streets, I could only dream about making my escape from the metropolitan area. It did not hold many redeeming traits for me.

One night I was startled to hear a loud peenting sound coming from the sky above me. It was similar to the call given by the American woodcock, which to my delight nested in a park near my home in Jersey City. But I was sure that what I was hearing could not be a woodcock, for the call issued from various positions above me. I felt sure the bird, whatever it was, was calling in flight as it passed through the muggy darkness. At times the sound was quite loud as it echoed off the tall concrete buildings.

After some research I found that it could only be the nighthawk, which has adapted to living around urban areas.

Originally, this bird nested on open ground such as sand dunes, logged or burned forest areas, grasslands and farm fields. It still does, where such habitat, undisturbed, is available. However, it will nest on flat, gravelly rooftops and hunt the bright spheres of city lights for the insects that are drawn to them.

Although certain conditions exist that have allowed the bird to adopt human habitats in which to breed, it still remains sensitive to disturbance and to the use of pesticides, which kill the insects they eat. Researchers have reported that populations have decreased over the last several years.

The name nighthawk is a misnomer, as the bird is not a hawk at all but is more closely related to the whip-poor-will. Nor does it hunt very long after darkness, but more often during dusk. It does, however, hunt entirely on the wing, “hawking” insects from the air with its mouth, which has an enormous gape out of proportion to its size.

Historically, this bird was also called a goatsucker or a bullbat. The former nickname resulted from the erroneous belief that the bird flew into barns to drink goats’ milk. The latter arose from the sound made by the wind rushing through the bird’s primary feathers, which produces a deep buzzing tone as the bird nears the end of its territorial display dive.

A nighthawk’s plumage is cryptic, which allows it to blend into its surroundings as it roosts or incubates eggs, which are also cryptically colored. This is why it likes flat gravel rooftops to nest on; it relies completely on camouflage to avoid detection and danger.

This does backfire when the birds roost on dark roads at night. Sadly, they get run over by vehicles.

Nighthawks are easy to identify. They are dark, the size of a small gull, and have long, thin, tapered wings with white slashes near the tips. Their flight is light, buoyant and erratic as they catch insects on the wing. They take to the air as dusk is falling, often emitting their distinctive “peent” call as they flit about. They are as much a part of the summer evening as the chirping of crickets; it just wouldn’t be the same without them.

Chris Corio’s column on birds is published each Saturday. Corio, a volunteer at Fields Pond Nature Center in Holden, can be reached at fieldspond@juno.com