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Short-tailed Nighthawk | Lurocalis semitorquatus
Kortstaartnachtzwaluw | Chotacabras cola corta
The Short-tailed Nighthawk is a dark, forest-dwelling nightjar with long, broad wings and a short tail. At dusk it flies low over the canopy, along forest edges and above rivers, with rapid, erratic turns more reminiscent of a bat than a bird. It is the only nightjar that does not lay its egg on the ground but on a thick horizontal branch.
Voice
Mostly heard in flight: a sharp, slightly liquid g'wik or gweek, often repeated. Also a series of regularly spaced ewit calls; vocalisations differ between subspecies.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
19–21 cm. Upperparts dark brown to blackish, finely spotted with rufous and buff; the long, broad wings reach beyond the tail tip at rest. The wings lack the white patches of most other nightjars. The throat is white, the breast dark, and the belly and undertail coverts brown and buff with dark barring. The tail is short and square, without white. The sexes are nearly alike. In flight the shape stands out: broad wings, short tail and a compact body.
Confusion species
Common Nighthawk Chordeiles minor, a passage migrant over Trinidad, has narrower, pointed wings with a white wing bar and a longer, slightly forked tail. Nacunda Nighthawk Chordeiles nacunda is larger, with a white belly and white wing patches. Pauraque Nyctidromus albicollis has a long tail and a white band across the primaries and hunts mainly from the ground. Swifts and bats over the forest are smaller or flutter differently, but confusion is possible in the last light.
Habitat
Lowland evergreen forest and forest on the lower slopes of the Northern Range, with clearings, edges and river valleys; also abandoned cacao plantations and secondary forest. At dusk it hunts beetles, true bugs and other flying insects above and just below the canopy. By day it roosts lengthwise on a thick branch, where its colouring serves as camouflage.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
In the Caribbean only on Trinidad, where most records come from the Northern Range, with scattered reports from the lowlands. There is no established population on Tobago. Outside the region from Mexico through Central America to much of tropical South America.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Best looked for at nightfall from a vantage point above forest in the Northern Range, such as the veranda of the Asa Wright Nature Centre, where birds regularly hunt low over the treetops. Shape and call are the clues; once it is fully dark the species is seldom seen.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species has a large range. On Trinidad it depends on forest and old plantations, and forest loss in the lowlands reduces its habitat.
Scientific name
Lurocalis semitorquatus | (Gmelin, 1789)
Gmelin described the species in 1789 as Caprimulgus semitorquatus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Lurocalis was introduced in 1851 by Cassin. Lurocalis is Greek, from oura 'tail' and kolos 'docked, stunted', after the strikingly short tail. semitorquatus is Latin for 'half-collared', from semi- 'half' and torquatus 'collared', after the white throat patch. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cayenne, French Guiana.