Overview
Whip-poor-will: Medium-sized nightjar with gray-brown-black mottled upperparts and pale gray-black underparts. Throat is black; eyebrows and neckband are white. Tail is long and rounded with large white corner patches. Brown legs and feet. Erratic mothlike flight, flies close to the ground at night.
Range and Habitat
Whip-poor-will: Breeds from Saskatchewan and Maritime Provinces south to Kansas, northern Louisiana, and northern Georgia, and in Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas. Spends winters in Florida and along the Gulf Coast southward to Panama. Prefers open woodlands with well-spaced trees.
Topo Map:
Perching-like Body
Listen to Call
Voice Text
"WHIP-poor- WEEA”
Interesting Facts
The Whip-poor-will lays its eggs so they hatch about 10 days before a full moon. This allows the adults to forage the entire night, and so best provide the nestlings with insects.
They fly around livestock at dusk to feed on insects swarming over the animals. It was once believed that they sucked milk from goats' udders and caused them to dry up; hence their family name, Caprimulgidae, from the Latin capri and mulgus, meaning "goat-milker."
The record number of calls in a row by a single bird is 1,088, perhaps accounting for their species name, vociferous.
A group of whip-poor-wills are collectively known as an "invisibility" and a "seek" of whip-poor-wills.
Bird Term Glossary
Author
Gary Owen Dick
Artist
Imran Kahn
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