Wandering Whippoorwill

I have written before about my experiences with the whippoorwill. For those unfamiliar with this bird, it is North America's version of what are dubbed nightjars or goatsuckers. Few birds have been given a more colorful or intriguing name. They are a nocturnal, insectivorous bird that can be confused with owls, as they are cryptically colored, active at night, and fly silently.

I have come to appreciate the whippoorwill because of its voracious appetite for insects—particularly pesky mosquitoes. Years ago I was irritated by its incessant call, until I learned about all the insects it eats. Now it's my buddy.

The whippoorwill's name is onomatopoeic, which is a cumbersome word that means the name originates from the sound the bird makes. Another familiar example is the cuckoo. To hear the whippoorwill's call is a unique experience.

We have a few resident whippoorwills in our little woodland enclave. I used to think we had many more of them, until I realized that a single bird will wander from place to place in the dark in its designated territory, bursting forth in its onomatopoeic song for several minutes, and then will fly to another location and sing out again. It is active all night long.

I was spending the night recently in my meditation hut—all windows open to the fresh night air—as I followed one whippoorwill around in my mind's eye, by its call. I first heard him off in the woods, then up on the ridge, then down by the creek—leaving me wondering how he could satisfy his evening's appetite for mosquitoes, when he spent so much time singing.

Then I heard him nearby, only about a hundred feet away—up on the slope. Loud! He seemed to be getting closer. A near full moon illuminated the area, and I happened to be staring at the stars through the overhead skylight, when the dark silhouette of a bird flew across my field of vision, right across the window. An owl? No, it was our resident nightjar.

He landed behind my hut and commenced once again to sing out. He was very close. His song was loud. In fact, he was close enough that I could hear him gulp for air, between his calls. I believe that, on breathing in, the bird enunciates the two syllables “whip-poor” and then with gusto blasts out “will” on its out-breath. I'm not sure about that, but its call can be repeated a few dozen times with no break for air, so it must be singing on both its in-breath and out-breath. It's only on the turnaround—from in-breath to out-breath—that you can hear his gulping sound, and then only when he's close by.

Shortly he completed his song from just outside my hut, then silently flew off. In a minute I heard him calling again from several hundred feet away in the woods. His nighttime wanderings continued for another few hours. I drifted off to sleep.