Chuck-Will's-Widow

Photo by Howard Patterson on Flickr

Antrostomus carolinensis
 
The first time I heard a Chuck-Will ’s-Widow, I didn’t realize I was hearing a bird. I kept hearing a whirring sound through my open window at night and thought my neighbors had some machinery running or something. When I finally got up to investigate, I realized it might be an animal and tried my Merlin app. Up popped Chuck-Will’s-Widow immediately. I had never even heard of this bird, even though I was familiar with other species of the Nightjar family. We had treated Common Poorwills and Lesser Nighthawks when I worked in wildlife rehabilitation. I had been lucky enough to see a Common Nighthawk while camping in Colorado, and had often heard of Whip-Poor-Wills, but just not this species.

Nightjars are nocturnal, usually ground-dwelling birds that look like they have tiny beaks until they open their mouths. It is like their whole head hinges in half and their mouths are enormous! While these giant mouths are used to catch insects, there is an ancient superstition that the birds use them to suck the teats of goats under the cloak of darkness. Therefore, you will also hear these birds referred to as goatsuckers. Needless to say, these birds don’t do this.
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I haven’t actually seen a Chuck-Will’s-Widow, but they are apparently about a foot long, and speckly-brown for camouflage. When I’m out walking at night, I can hear them more clearly hiding in thickets. I’ll keep looking, but until then, I will continue to drift off to sleep to their whirring calls.

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