Nighthawks

Maybe I’m getting spoiled already, but Mills Reservation seemed a bit on the slow side yesterday morning, with just nine species of warblers, all of them (with the beautiful exception of American Redstarts) in small numbers. The weather was pretty dank, too, warmer than expected and much more humid than hoped.

So I came home and waited for the weather to get worse, which it obligingly did towards evening: more clouds, oppressive humidity, and just the slightest of sprinkles. But then, as I watched the sky and wondered how long it would be ’til we saw the sun again, a distant flicker of wings drew my attention. A Common Nighthawk–and another, and another, finally a total of nine that drifted in from the north to hunt over the neighborhood swamp.

For many of us, nighthawks are birds of childhood, observed and enjoyed long before we were “birders” and long, perhaps, before we even really knew what they were. I don’t recall when I first heard the name “nighthawk,” but I have clear and happy memories of watching these dramatic birds flitting over night-lit baseball fields, streaming south on autumn afternoons, flashing through the spotlights on the state capitol building. I haven’t seen many over the past few years, in part because the species is scarce in southern Arizona, in part because it has declined throughout its range–so you can bet that I’ll be out in the evening again once this hurricane passes and the skies are safe for nightjars.