Nighthawk

I once saw one of these in mid-afternoon, but otherwise only in the evenings and at night. They make a strange sound sometimes that isn’t a normal “call,” and it wasn’t until my last night of camping that I got a firsthand demonstration of how they do it. As I was setting up my tent I heard the already-familiar sound just above my head. Then I got the first of many repeat performances: It flew high into the air, over 100 yards, and held a position face-first into the wind. It wobbled, almost vibrated, on its long, thin wings in drafts until the decisive moment when it brought its wings in close and dove, using the wind for downward accelleration until it reached a dizzying speed. Just before reaching the ground –once under six or seven feet — it pulled out of the dive, making a loud buzzing noise with its wings. After watching this stunt a few times, I saw that the wings were held in a downward bow while it pulled up from these dives — an impressive-looking feat of strength. I thought that it was another strictly territorial behavior until I saw another nighthawk sitting on a sandy patch of ground about 30 feet away, watching the other’s diving as attentively as I had been. The diver would occasionally land in the same sandy patch, where I once saw it give its mate an impressive display of fanned feathers. It appeared the two were courting, and I hoped that my presence, rather than a disturbance, had given the male an opportunity to show off how effective of a protector he could be. When I awoke at sunrise, six hours later, the diving was still going on above my tent.