Nearly fifty different species of the singular nocturnal birds commonly known as “Goatsuckers” are found in the Neotropical Region. They are most numerous within the tropics, where insect-life is more abundant, but also occur more sparingly in temperate latitudes. Six of them have been recorded as having been met with within the limits assigned to this work.
The Goatsuckers generally take their insect-prey on the wing late in the evening; but many of them often alight on the ground, and usually nest there or in hollow trees.
[242.] PODAGER NACUNDA (Vieill.).
(NACUNDA GOATSUCKER.)
Podager nacunda, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 95; iid. P. Z. S. 1868, p. 142 (Buenos Ayres); Burm. La-Plata Reise, ii. p. 449 (Paraná); Barrows, Auk, 1884, p. 24 (Entrerios, Bahia Blanca).
Description.—Above brown with dense black vermiculations and occasional blotches; wings black, with a broad white cross bar across the base of the primaries; secondaries and coverts like the back; tail above like the back, beneath grey with blackish cross bands; four outer tail-feathers broadly tipped with white: beneath, breast brown variegated with black, as above; chin fulvous; band across the throat and whole belly and crissum white; bill black; feet pale brown: whole length 11·0 inches, wing 9·5, tail 4·9. Female similar, but without the white ends to the tail-feathers.
Hab. South America.
The specific name of this Goatsucker is from the Guaraní word Ñacundá, which Azara tells us is the Indian nickname for any person with a very large mouth. In the Argentine country it has several names, being called Dormilon (Sleepy-head) or Duerme-duerme (Sleep-sleep), also Gallina ciega (blind hen). It is a large handsome bird, and differs from its congeners in being gregarious, and in never perching on trees or entering woods. It is an inhabitant of the open pampas. In Buenos Ayres, and also in Paraguay, according to Azara, it is a summer visitor, arriving at the end of September and leaving at the end of February. In the love season the male is sometimes heard uttering a song or call, with notes of a hollow mysterious character; at other times they are absolutely silent, except when disturbed in the daytime, and then each bird when taking flight emits the syllable kuf in a hollow voice. When flushed the bird rushes away with a wild zigzag flight, close to the ground, then suddenly drops like a stone, disappearing at the same moment from sight as effectively as if the earth had swallowed it up, so perfect is the protective resemblance in the colouring of the upper plumage to the ground. In the evening they begin to fly about earlier than most Caprimulgi, hawking after insects like swallows, skimming over the surface of the ground and water with a swift, irregular flight; possibly the habit of sitting in open places exposed to the full glare of the sun has made them somewhat less nocturnal than other species that seek the shelter of thick woods or herbage during the hours of light.
The Nacunda breeds in October, and makes no nest, but lays two eggs on a scraped place on the open plain. Mr. Dalgleish says of the eggs:—“They are oval-shaped, and resemble much in appearance those of the Nightjar, except that the markings, which are similar in character to those of the latter, are of a reddish-brown or port-wine colour.”
After the breeding-season they are sometimes found in flocks of forty or fifty individuals, and will spend months on the same spot, returning to it in equal numbers every year. One summer a flock of about two hundred individuals frequented a meadow near my house, and one day I observed them rise up very early in the evening and begin soaring about like a troop of swallows preparing to migrate. I watched them for upwards of an hour; but they did not scatter as on previous evenings to seek for food, and after a while they began to rise higher and higher, still keeping close together, until they disappeared from sight. Next morning I found that they had gone.