The Whippoorwill
There is a bird in our neck of the woods that is most peculiar. It is so elusive that the first nests in Oklahoma were not scientifically documented until the 1980s. If you do get the chance to observe this bird, one of the first things you will notice is its bizarre shape. It has a beak that is rather out of proportion to its triangular body. It looks like a rock or stump of wood sticking out of a tree branch. Its plumage resembles a patch of rotting leaves or dried out moss you might step on before you spot it. As it is only active at night, our mysterious forest dweller spends its days motionless on the forest floor or a tree branch. A true master of stealth, its camouflage is superbly adapted to blend in with the undergrowth of the woodlands. This understory offers a pristine habitat full of its favourite food: Flying insects. At dusk and at dawn, just dark enough for the insects to swarm yet remain visible to its discerning eyes, it takes to its wings. It morphs from a pile of leaves into one of the most superb flyers in the animal kingdom. Silently, it launches itself from its perch, using its oversized mouth to catch the largest moths with swift 180-degree U-turns. How do we even know it is there? For it has the peculiar habit of repeated vocalizations that cannot possibly be mistaken for that of any other bird. "Whippoorwill, Whippoorwill", chimes through the pregnant summer nights, echoing off the rocks on the other side of the lake.
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of being part of a study aimed at counting the number of nesting birds on our lakeshores. We set out at dusk on our boat along the shore of a peninsula with nothing but a flashlight to guide us. The biologist carried a directional microphone to record calls as we pinpointed the location of the Whippoorwills by triangulating the sound from multiple angles. The moon beamed across the lake in full force, something these mysterious birds revere: Their egg laying is timed such that the chicks hatch only on a full moon. They do not do this for reasons of superstition. Rather, it ensures all night visibility to fulfill the insatiable appetite of the one or two chicks. That night, we found 5 male birds blasting their names in full force on just a short stretch of shoreline. We demonstrated that their numbers were at least double that, and that the woodlands surrounding our lake, indeed, form prime nesting habitat for these wondrous creatures.
Unfortunately, this rather amazing bird has been declining in numbers about 3% year over year in North America. Since the 1960s, its numbers plummeted to less than 25% of what they once were. Amongst its many peculiarities, Whippoorwills are ground laying birds, relying on an Oak-Pine-Hickory forest understory habitat full of small shrubs, moist moss, rotting leaves and ferns. If you do not buy into the idea of a sedentary swallow, try driving your car along a gravel road on a warm June night. If you watch carefully, you might see two retroreflective eyes peeking out alongside the road. These are no lane markers, but belong to Whippoorwill taking a well-deserved dust bath to beat the bugs they cannot reach. The reflection is generated by the Tapetum Lucidum behind their retinas. It mirrors the light in their eyes, providing a double exposure that allows this bird to see better in the dark. The layer is an example of Quantum Biology: it evolved at one quarter of the average wavelength of light behind the retina's ganglion cells. Much like a wave crest bouncing off the lake shoreline, it allows the incoming light waves to interfere constructively as they bounce back, greatly enhancing the chances of being picked up by the retinal cells.
The steady decline of Whippoorwills in North America can be attributed to habitat destruction upon the construction of new homes. For unfathomable reasons, people moving lakeside like to bring their lawns with them. These displace the very understory this bird so desperately relies on for its home. Shoreline trees are usually next to go, leading to a paradox: Why would anyone move into a forest only to subsequently remove all trees? The irony is perhaps most striking in the naming of subdivisions like Applewood, which inevitably refer to the habitat they destroyed. It all adds to a false sense of romance, real estate broker tomfoolery that is not underscored by an appreciation of biodiversity, the true romance of nature. A property in my vicinity used to have a lovely patch of open forest understory, prime real estate for Whippoorwills. You could hear them call all night, from May to July, every summer. When the property changed hands, chainsaws and brush cutters made quick work of the woods and understory, and in one fell swoop, the Whippoorwills were gone.
This inexplicable behaviour is perhaps deeply rooted in the human fear of what lurks in the woods at night. Whippoorwills have instilled an irrational fear in humans for many thousands of years. Perhaps because of their stealth, sinister tales of this mysterious daemon proliferate. According to Roman philosopher Pliny, the elusive Whippoorwill sucked the milk out of goats at night, leading to their Latin name Caprimulgidae, which translates to the unflattering nickname "Goatsuckers". In fact, Whippoorwill were doing farmers a favour by eating insects that were pestering their livestock. First Nations were convinced that the cry of the Whippoorwill was bewitched, a sure spell of death upon its observer. This false narrative was adopted by early European settlers: “It is whispered that they linger and flutter around houses where death is approaching, hoping to catch the soul of the departed”. All in all, this did not make this bird, nor the understory it inhabits, beloved. Such ignorance led to the demise of Whippoorwill's larger cousin, the Nightjar on our lake. These majestic birds used to be prevalent here until the 1960s, but are now sadly extinct. Bug spray will have to be employed in lieu of the lost services of these natural insect controls, as we proceed to eradicate the very basis of our food chain.
