16 Could 2024
Once I was a child within the Nineteen Sixties frequent nighthawks (Chordeiles minor) have been so frequent that they attracted my discover and impressed my love for birds. Within the late Nineteen Seventies many flew above my neighborhood on summer season nights, hawking moths over the Magee Area ballpark lights. Within the Nineteen Nineties their inhabitants started a steep decline and by the late 2000s I seen it in my neighborhood. This 12 months I haven’t seen a nighthawk but. Their decline has gotten worse within the final 20 years.
Nighthawks are nightjars and they’re all in bother together with whip-poor-wills and chuck-wills-widow.
What number of nighthawks are left? The place are they now?
You’ll be able to assist reply these questions by collaborating within the 2024 Nightjar Survey performed by the Heart for Conservation Biology.
The survey window for your complete continental US opened yesterday, working from 15 Could to 30 Could.
Apparently you solely need to depend nighthawks by the sunshine of the moon as a result of they name extra usually when the moon is shining. The subsequent full moon is 23 Could, proper in the course of the survey interval.
Take a look at the survey directions PDF right here or on their web site at nightjars.org.
Learn extra concerning the decline of nighthawks on this classic article from 2009.
p.s. I participated within the nightjar survey with Michelle Kienholz in 2018. The utmost quantity we counted at one cease was simply two.
See survey outcomes from all years right here.
