Common Nighthawk

• Its genus name, Chordeiles, comes from the Greek khoreia, dance with music, and deile, evening: literally "the dance of the evening", after its erratic flight at dusk.
• Until the early nineteenth century the nighthawk and the whip-poor-will were thought to be the same species, and the latter's song was explained as the night-time expression of the former; it was Alexander Wilson, the father of American ornithology, who correctly separated them.
• Nine subspecies are recognised.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat and environment

A wide variety of open country across the Americas, including urban areas where it hunts under street lamps

Size at birth

Semi-precocial chicks, able to move into the shade within a few days; they start to fly at 18 days and complete their development between 45 and 52

Sexual maturity

1 year

Gestation / incubation

19 days

Litter / clutch size

2

Sources consulted: IUCN Red List; Wikipedia (Common nighthawk); IOC World Bird List; Jobling 2010, The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names; Forster 1771

Best time: At twilight in summer, when it flies over open ground and towns hunting insects