The Poor-will spends the day sleeping on the ground under the shelter of a sage-bush, or close beside some lichen-covered rock, to which its intricate pattern of plumage marvelously assimilates. When startled, by day, the bird flits a few yards over the sage-tops and plumps down at haphazard. If it chances to settle in the full sunlight, it appears to be blinded and may allow a close approach; but if in the shade, one is not likely to surprise it again. Even after nightfall these fairy moth-catchers are much more terrestrial in their habits than are the Nighthawks. They alight upon the ground upon the slightest pretext and, indeed, appear most frequently to attain their object by leaping up at passing insects. They are more strictly nocturnal in habit, also, than the Night Jars, and we know of their later movements only thru the intermittent exercise of song. Heard in some starlit cañon, the passing of a Poor-will in full cry is an indescribable experience, producing feelings somewhere between pleasure and fear,—pleasure in the delightful melancholy of the notes heard in the dim distance, but something akin to terror at the near approach and thrilling climax of the portentous sounds.
Taken in the hand, one sees what a quiet, inoffensive fay the Poor-will is, all feathers and itself a mere featherweight. The silken sheen and delicate tracery of the frost-work upon the plumage it were hopeless to describe. It is as tho some fairy snowball had struck the bird full on the forehead, and from thence gone shivering with ever lessening traces all over the upperparts. Or, perhaps, to allow another fancy, the dust of the innumerable moth-millers, with which the bird is always wrestling, gets powdered over its garments. The large bristles which line the upper mandible, and which increase the catching capacity of the extensive gape by half, are seen to be really modified feathers, and not hairs, as might be supposed, for in younger specimens they are protected by little horny basal sheaths. With this equipment, and wings, our melancholy hero easily becomes the envy of mere human entomologists.
No. 157.
PACIFIC NIGHTHAWK
A. O. U. No. 420 part. Chordeiles virginianus hesperis J. Grinnell.
Synonym.—Bull-bat.
Description.—Adult male: Mottled, black, gray and ochraceous, and with white in patches; above black predominates, especially on forehead and back, mottling falling into indistinct bars on upper tail-coverts and tail; anterior edge of wing white; the wing-quills dusky; a large, white, transverse patch about midway on the first five primaries, save on the outer web of the first; a large V-shaped throat-patch white; remaining underparts distinctly and finely barred, dusky and whitish with some faint ochraceous,—the latter found especially on the parts adjacent to the white throat-patch; the crissum sometimes pure white, usually barred, at greater intervals than on breast; a white band crossing tail near tip, except on central feathers. Bill without evident bristles, the horny part very small, but length of gape about an inch. Tarsus very short; the middle claw enlarged, and with a curious, horny, comb-like process on the inner edge. Adult female: Similar, but without white band on tail, and with white spots on primaries often much reduced; throat-patch tinged with ochraceous, and suffusion of underparts by this color more pronounced. Immature: More finely and heavily mottled than adults, and with upperparts more heavily marked, or even suffused with ochraceous-buff. Length 9.00-10.00 (228.6-254); wing 4.85 (123.2); tail 4.32 (109.7); bill from nostril .21 (5.3).
Recognition Marks.—To appearance “Little Hawk” size—really smaller; central white spot in long wing distinctive.
Nesting.—Eggs: 2, deposited on the bare ground, often among rocks, sometimes upon a flat rock, or on the gravel roof of a tall building; grayish white, or dull olive-buff marbled, mottled, or clouded and speckled with various shades of olive, and brownish- or purplish-gray. Av. size, 1.18 × .86 (30 × 21.8). Season: June; one brood.
General Range.—Pacific coast slope north to British Columbia.
Range in Washington.—West-side, summer resident in open situations.
Authorities.—Chordeiles popetue, Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX. 1858, p. 153. T. C&S. B. E.
Specimens.—Prov.
The Nighthawk arrives so tardily—never before the middle of May and from that date to the middle of June—that he reminds us of the naughty child who has disregarded the parental summons and comes upon the scene sleepy and cross at 9.30 a. m., when all good little children are at school. We are sure, too, that it must be something like the necessity of eating cold victuals that makes the bird grumble bayard - bayard as it flits about discontentedly on the first morning. Moreover, there is always something incongruous about the appearance of this prairie species in the land of tall timber. He is like the man from Kansas. He has a perfect right here and he is a very good fellow. Oh, to be sure!
The Pacific Nighthawk differs by scarcely assignable characters from the typical form of the eastern United States, but it is separated from it in distribution by two bleached phases, C. v. henryi and C. v. sennetti, of the desert and plain respectively; so we feel confident that it represents a resaturation of the intermediate stock rather than a division or colony of C. virginianus proper. Bird of the plains tho it be, it is pushing its way determinedly on the West-side wherever openings offer, and is as likely to occur upon the San Juan Islands or in some little clearing of the mountain valleys as upon the ampler reaches of the Chehalis prairies. Latterly, also, it has accommodated itself to the life of the city, and from the fearless way in which it appears over Pacific Avenue in Tacoma, or Second Avenue in Seattle, we judge that it must be following the well established eastern custom of laying its eggs on the flat roofs of down-town buildings.
No. 158.
WESTERN NIGHTHAWK.
A. O. U. No. 420 a. Chordeiles virginianus henryi (Cass.).
Description.—Similar to C. v. hesperis, but paler thruout; areas of black reduced, white patches of throat, wing, and tail averaging larger; below more extensively tawny whitish.
Recognition Marks.—As in preceding.
Nesting.—Nest and Eggs not distinguishable from those of C. v. hesperis.
General Range.—Arid Transition and Canadian life-zones of the Western United States from the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains to the Cascade-Sierra ranges, north into British Columbia; south in winter to northern South America.
Range in Washington.—Common summer resident in open situations east of the Cascade Mountains.
Migrations.—Spring: Moses Lake, May 13, 1906; Chelan, May 29, 1905; Oro, May 29, 1896.
Authorities.—[“Western Nighthawk,” Johnson, Rep. Gov. W. T. 1884 (1885) 22]; Bendire, Life Hist. N. A. Birds, Vol. II., 1895, p. 168. D¹. Sr. Ra. D². Ss¹. Ss². Kk(?). J.
Specimens.—(U. of W.) P¹. Prov. E.
These Nighthawks are perfectly harmless except to moths, midges, and their ilk; and their uplifted wings half careened by the evening breeze furnish one of the most pleasing adornments of lowland meadow or sage-covered upland. The birds “quarter the air” incessantly in a bat-like flight of irregular zigzags, often pouting as they go, bayard - bayard. They are not so strictly nocturnal as the Poor-wills, but put a liberal construction on “twilight,” being careful to avail themselves of all cloudy days, and, in fact, moving about at will whenever the sun slants fairly. The middle hours of the day are spent upon the ground, where their neutral tints serve a protective purpose and are almost implicitly relied on. During the mating season the males take great parabolic headers in the air, returning sharply and producing a loud booming daw-w—whether by the rushing of air thru the wings or across the opened mouth, will, perhaps, never be determined.
