Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Heard the first Wipperwill last night

Y’all ever hear a “rain bird “.

Dad always claimed he heard them and it meant it was gonna rain tomorrow. 🤪

Never heard or saw one. 😬

Been hearing them evening and morning for about 2 weeks now in central Florida.

I’ve been hearing 4-5 every night from 8:30-9:30 pm - in western PA.

I've heard Mourning Doves called "rain birds" here in KY.

This might sound goofy but when you’re listening to either one, if you cup your hands behind your ears it’ll add a whole ‘Nother layer of fidelity to what you’re hearing.

45 years ago I could stand on a hilltop in Upstate NY in June in the evening and hear wood thrush upon wood thrush off into the distance. Not nearly as many now.

Habitat destruction in the Tropics sure but a few weeks back a lady who worked on a Preserve back East told me too many whitetails can destroy the forest understory up here, ruining the habitat.

I remember seeing a lot of Wood Thrush around a then recent clear cut also at my grandparents place. I had a lot of fun sitting on a hill in the middle of the clear cut listening to them at sunset and occasionally picking off vermin with my Ruger 10/22. Being a clear cut surround by mostly mature maples and swamp it was overrun with deer. I shot my first two deer within two hundred yards of that hill.

Rain bird? We called them rain crows in WVA. Black or Yellow Billed cuckoo. Only maybe one or two heard over an entire summer.

Different opinion here. The SOBs have kept me up all night long at Scout Camp in VA. Thank god we don't have them around where I camp most.

The rain crow I’m familiar with in folklore is the yellow-billed cuckoo, late migrants just arriving as we speak.

Point of interest they’re hairy caterpillar specialists, Ming the few birds that can eat then. They shed the lining of their stomach with the mat of hairs attached.

No good YouTube’s with the calls, the Audubon people have the best recordings (scroll down) but they put everything in the context of climate change.

https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/yellow-billed-cuckoo

This! We got lots of em here ! Rain Crows!!! Yellow Billed Cuckoo

Different opinion here. The SOBs have kept me up all night long at Scout Camp in VA. Thank god we don't have them around where I camp most.

I hear them every morning when I go turkey hunting. Even recorded them one morning.

Whipporwills usually start up in early March up here. As soon as we start hearing the Peepers down at the cow pond, the Whipporwills are not far behind.

To me, they sound perverse: "Whippor-WILL! Whippor-WILL! Whippor-WILL! But-she-won't! But-she-won't! But-she-won't! Not with YOU! Not with YOU! Not with YOU!

When I first got down here 20+ years ago, we also had Chuck Will's Widow. They came out a bit later in the year. However, they disappeared with the grouse. I haven't heard one in a decade.

I was camping once on Kerr Reservoir and one was calling in a tree right over top of me. It was like a car alarm going off. Threw rocks toward the noise but it didn't care. No sleeping with one that close.

One out here this morning behind the ranch house

Heard 3 this morning. One at the farm, one at the Arsenal gate, and one near the office parking lot.

Used to hear them frequently when we went to a cottage every year in Northern Wisconsin as a kid. One of my childhood memories, lying in bed listening to them. Have never heard one in South West Wisconsin, don't know if they used to be around here and have declined.

Sitting on my porch listening to a wood thrush behind the house, watching the flashes of:
orange from orioles,
yellow of the gold finches and yellow warblers,
red from the cardinals, and
blue from the indigo buntings,
makes me feel incredibly fortunate to live where I do

We have them beaucoup on the farm here. Only just started firing off with their calls about 5 days ago.

When they start, it’s a competition between about 4 birds spread about 400 yards apart.

I always wait until the whipper will starts calling to plant our corn. That’s what the old timers always say at least in our area of Tenn

Well, I beat the bastards, have had the corn planted for 2 weeks. They are really late this spring.

Note- ours go batshît crazy about 20 mins after sundown. Only call for a few mins and shut down. I have not known any to call late into the overnight.

We have a bird here that is called a Night Hawk. People used to call them Whippoorwills or Rainbirds. They come out in the evening and catch flying insects. The only vocal sound I ever heard them make were peeps. But they can make some real neat sounds with their wings----I think part of a mating ritual. I saw about a dozen of them the other evening, but not near as many as a few year ago.
I have only seen one of them not flying ,sitting on a tree limb in town.
I have always wondered if Night Hawk was their proper name.

I just did my research and they actually are Night Hawks and are related to the Whippoorwills!

I caught one fly fishing and it was almost dark and the bird got tangled up in the leader and hit the water. I unwrapped the line and the bird flew away.

The middle/ eastern part of Michigan's lower peninsula has an area known loosely as the sand and oak plains and Night Hawks are fairly common in the area. I've spent hours watching and listening to them.

The wing noise is the feathers "rattling" as they pull out of a dive, which they do in pursuit of flying insects.