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Common Nighthawk | Chordeiles minor
Amerikaanse nachtzwaluw | Añapero yanqui
The Common Nighthawk breeds across much of North America and winters in South America, as far as Argentina. Part of the population migrates through the Caribbean, mainly its western part. There it is seen only during migration, often in loose groups hunting high over land at dusk. While silent, it can hardly be told in the field from Antillean Nighthawk, which breeds on the islands in the same season.
Voice
Often silent on migration. The call is a nasal, buzzy peent or bzzeert, given in flight. In display the male dives steeply, the air rushing through the primaries to produce a low booming sound.
Recording: Trent R. Stanley — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
22–25 cm, with long, pointed wings that extend well beyond the tail, and a forked tail. The plumage is dark grey-brown, heavily mottled with black, grey and white. The underparts are white to buff with dense dark barring. A white bar crosses five primaries midway between the bend of the wing and the tip. The male has a white throat patch and a white band near the end of the tail; the female has a buff throat and no tail band.
Confusion species
Antillean Nighthawk Chordeiles gundlachii is slightly smaller and shorter-winged, with more buff on the underparts and underwing coverts and contrasting pale tertials on a perched bird; the call is the most reliable difference. Lesser Nighthawk Chordeiles acutipennis is smaller and paler, with the wing bar nearer the tip and buff spots in the primaries; it usually flies low.
Habitat
On migration over almost any open country: grassland, pasture, beaches, villages, towns and airfields, but also over forest. It hunts flying insects mainly at dusk and sometimes by day, often high up. By day it roosts on a branch, a post or the ground.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Passage migrant through the Bahamas, Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica and Hispaniola, in smaller numbers east to Puerto Rico and the Lesser Antilles. A regular passage migrant on Bonaire and Curaçao; a vagrant in Trinidad. Spring passage is in April and May, autumn passage from August to October. Breeds from Canada and the United States to Central America and winters in South America, mainly Argentina.
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Autumn evenings over open ground such as airfields, pastures and coastal plains in Cuba and Jamaica offer the best chance; groups sometimes pass. Silent birds cannot be safely separated from Antillean Nighthawk; they are best recorded as nighthawk sp., unless the call is heard or the bird occurs outside the Antillean species' breeding season.
Conservation status
Not threatened, but numbers in North America are declining, probably because of fewer flying insects and loss of breeding habitat. No threats are known in the Caribbean.
Scientific name
Chordeiles minor | (Forster, 1771)
Forster described the species in 1771 as Caprimulgus minor; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Chordeiles was introduced in 1832 by Swainson. Chordeiles is Greek, from khoreia 'dance' and deilē 'evening', after the dancing hunting flights at dusk. minor is Latin for 'smaller', distinguishing it from the larger nightjars it was first compared with. The specimen the first description was based on came from South Carolina (designated later).