Nighthawks and Wood Ducks

Saturday evening, I had my first sighting this fall of common nighthawks. I was looking for them as they migrate through New York each year in September. But when I first caught sight of them, having seen them only a few times in my short birdwatching career, I thought they were hawks (for an instant) and then (very dark) gulls before I recognized them by their white wing patches. These birds are a species of special concern in New York although they continue to nest in both Manhattan and Brooklyn, according to Bull's. A birder named Ben Cacace has made regular reports of sighting nighthawks, at dusk, over Central Park this summer. Bootstrap analysis has an excellent post on the causes of the bird's decline.

Audubon wrote this about the nighthawk's flight:

The Night-Hawk has a firm, light, and greatly prolonged flight. In dull cloudy weather, it may be seen on the wing during the whole day, and is more clamorous than at any other time. The motions of its wings while flying are peculiarly graceful, and the playfulness which it evinces renders its flight quite interesting. The bird appears to glide through the air with all imaginable ease, assisting its ascent, or supporting itself on high, by irregular hurried flappings performed at intervals, as if it had unexpectedly fallen in with its prey, pursued, and seized it. Its onward motion is then continued. It moves in this manner, either upwards in circles, emitting a loud sharp squeak at the beginning of each sudden start it takes, or straight downwards, then to the right or left, whether high or low, as it presses onward, now skimming closely over the rivers, lakes, or shores of the Atlantic, and again wending its way over the forests or mountain tops. During the love season its mode of flight is particularly interesting: the male may be said to court his mate entirely on the wing, strutting as it were through the air, and performing a variety of evolutions with the greatest ease and elegance, insomuch that no bird with which I am acquainted can rival it in this respect. It frequently raises itself a hundred yards, sometimes much more, and apparently in the same careless manner already mentioned, its squeaking notes becoming louder and more frequent the higher it ascends; when, checking its course, it at once glides obliquely downwards, with wings and tail half closed, and with such rapidity that a person might easily conceive it to be about to dash itself against the ground. But when close to the earth, often at no greater distance than a few feet, it instantaneously stretches out its wings, so as to be nearly directed downwards at right angles with the body, expands its tail, and thus suddenly checks its downward career. It then brushes, as it were, through the air, with inconceivable force, in a semicircular line of a few yards in extent. This is the moment when the singular noise produced by this bird is heard, for the next instant it rises in an almost perpendicular course, and soon begins anew this curious mode of courtship. The concussion caused, at the time the bird passes the centre of its plunge, by the new position of its wings, which are now brought almost instantly to the wind, like the sails of a ship suddenly thrown aback, is the cause of this singular noise. The female does not produce this, although she frequently squeaks whilst on the wing.

Meanwhile, on the upper pool in Prospect Park, you can now see the wood ducks returning to their glorious breeding plumage. There were seven on the pool tonight. Audubon referred to the duck as the "summer duck" although this seems a strange name as the bird loses its breeding plumage in July and August and is a mere shadow of itself in "eclipse" plumage. He described their courtship in somewhat purple prose:

When March has again returned, and the Dogwood expands its pure blossoms in the sun, the Cranes soar away on their broad wings, bidding our country adieu for a season, flocks of water-fowl are pursuing their early migrations, the frogs issue from their muddy beds to pipe a few notes of languid joy, the Swallow has just arrived, and the Blue-bird has returned to his box. The Wood Duck almost alone remains on the pool, as if to afford us an opportunity of studying the habits of its tribe. Here they are, a whole flock of beautiful birds, the males chasing their rivals, the females coquetting with their chosen beaux. Observe that fine drake! how gracefully he raises his head and curves his neck! As he bows before the object of his love, he raises for a moment his silken crest. His throat is swelled, and from it there issues a guttural sound, which to his beloved is as sweet as the song of the Wood Thrush to its gentle mate. The female, as if not unwilling to manifest the desire to please ;which she really feels, swims close by his side, now and then caresses him by touching his feathers with her bill, and shews displeasure towards any other of her sex that may come near. Soon the happy pair separate from the rest, repeat every now and then their caresses, and at length, having sealed the conjugal compact, fly off to the woods to search for a large Woodpecker's hole. Occasionally the males fight with each other, but their combats are not of long duration, nor is the field ever stained with blood, the loss of a few feathers or a sharp tug of the head being generally enough to decide the contest. Although the Wood Ducks always form their nests in the hollow of a tree, their caresses are performed exclusively on the water, to which they resort for the purpose, even when their loves have been first proved far above the ground on a branch of some tall sycamore. While the female is depositing her eggs, the male is seen to fly swiftly past the hole in which she is hidden, erecting his crest, and sending forth his love-notes, to which she never fails to respond.

This duck very nearly disappeared from our ponds and lakes due to overhunting and wetlands destruction. Populations were "alarmingly low" by the late 1880s. A combination of hunting prohibition/regulation and human assistance - in the form of the construction of thousands of nest boxes - has brought the birds back.