On this day in 1853, Henry David Thoreau stumbled upon one of the rarest of things: the nesting site of a Common Nighthawk, a bird who’s neither a hawk nor exactly a nocturnal bird. Secretive and impossibly camouflaged birds, most nightjars — including nighthawks — nest directly on the ground. Nighthawks are no different, though they sometimes elect to nest on the gravel-covered roofs of buildings.
Thoreau found his bird by accident, disturbing the bird on one of his walks. He’d return to the site several times that June to see how the birds fared. I’ll return to his accounts, too, over the next few weeks.
But for now, here’s his entry for June 1, 1853, which Francis H. Allen reproduced in his 1910 book, Thoreau’s Bird-Lore.
June 1, 1853 – Thoreau discovers a Nighthawk nest
Walking up this side- hill , I disturbed a nighthawk eight or ten feet from me, which went, half fluttering, half hopping, the mottled creature, like a winged toad […] down the hill as far as I could see.
Without moving, I looked about and saw its two eggs on the bare ground, on a slight shelf of the hill , on the dead pine -needles and sand , without any cavity or nest whatever, very obvious when once you had detected them, but not easily detected from their color, a coarse gray formed of white spotted with a bluish or slaty brown or umber, a stone – granite – color, like the places it selects .
I advanced and put my hand on them , and while I stooped , seeing a shadow on the ground , looked up and saw the bird , which had fluttered down the hill so blind and helpless, circling low and swiftly past over my head , showing the white spot on each wing in true nighthawk fashion . When I had gone a dozen rods , it appeared again higher in the air, with its peculiar flitting , limping kind of flight, all the while noiseless , and suddenly descending, it dashed at me within ten feet of my head, like an imp of darkness, then swept away high over the pond, dashing now to this side now to that, on different tacks, as if, in pursuit of its prey, it had already forgotten its eggs on the earth. I can see how it might easily come to be regarded with superstitious awe.
The Distraction Display
Had Thoreau not (respectfully) retreated when the nesting Nighthawk returned to her site, he might have witnessed an escalation in the bird’s distraction display. (The initial flight, within ten feet of his head and around the nest site, is in fact one way the Common Nighthawk responds to intruders.)
Adult nightjars, like some other ground-nesting birds (such as Killdeer) often pretend to be injured when an animal they perceive as a threat encounters their nest.
Here’s a video from New Hampshire Audubon recording the display.
Superstitious awe, indeed
Credits
Header Photo by USFWS Mountain-Prairie
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