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

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 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

I’ve only heard whippoorwills twice in Texas over the last going on 40 years, both times in the spring. For a few years I lived in a hut on a deer leash outside of College Station, single cold faucet, no electricity
.

One evening there were no less than five calling around the hut at dusk, easily the most I or almost anyone has heard at one time, but just briefly, less than a minute, then they most likely commenced to migrate.

The other time was a couple of years back here in town, early dawn, just briefly, most likely just arrived after a night of migrating north.

Chucks and ‘wills both are LOUD, a chuck landed on the metal roof of the hut once and it was rock concert loud.

One spring I rode out on my motorcycle to camp a couple of nights with my brother and his step son at Hot Springs AR, it was April and a chuck had just arrived and was setting up territory. Commenced to call around midnight just as social gatherings were winding down, damn chuck went on for hours.

“SHUUUT UP”, “BIRD SHUT UP”.... people were shouting all over the campgrounds