#8 Caring for Mother Nature: Chuck-will’s-widow

Greetings, subscribers. Welcome to the 8th post about Earth Care. It’s an article by my friend, the naturalist and author, Peggy Sias Lantz. Let’s learn a little something about her favorite bird and what it does that delights her.

My Favorite Bird: the Chuck-will’s-widow

by Peggy Sias Lantz

Before my five-acre woods became totally overgrown, my husband and our son cut trails so I could ride my horse through it. It was originally a longleaf pine sandhill with turkey oaks, lupines, garberia, rosemary, Carolina jessamine, even a few young longleaf pines growing in it.

Often, especially in the fall, the golden orb spiders would build their nests across the trail, and sometimes my horse or I would find our faces covered with the web. I apologized for making them build their web all over again, cleaned off our faces, and began carrying a stick to take their webs down ahead of us. Then I began realizing that on ensuing days the web would be alongside the trail or over our heads. Did you know spiders were teachable? Neither did I, but I believe it now.

Once while riding in the evening I saw a cluster of zebra longwing butterflies hanging vertically on a branch for the night.

A pair of Cooper’s Hawks built their nest in my woods. Screech owls brought their babies to a branch in front of our house where we could watch them being fed. A Northern Flicker built its nest in a hole in a dead tree, then after her hatchlings were fledged, a Red-bellied Woodpecker raised her family in the same hole.

And every spring, to my delight, on the Ides of March, the Chuck-will’s-widow would return to nest in my woods. The Chuck is a relative of the Whippoorwill, and I remember hearing the call of the Whippoorwill when I was a child in New England.  The “southern Whippoorwill” is the Chuck-will’s-widow. They look very much alike, but the calls are different. The whippoorwill’s call, sounding just like its name, is amazingly continuous and non-stop. The Chuck’s call, sounding just like its name and just as never-ending as the Whippoorwill’s call, has a break between each call. Both of them are very loud, giving them the common nickname of nightjars.

The Chuck-will’s-widow is my favorite bird. I love to hear it sing.

Until my woods became too overgrown and the neighbor began feeding feral cats, the Chuck would nest in the woods. She lays her eggs on the ground without even making a scraped place. If she is disturbed, she can move her eggs to another location. She has a tiny bill but a big mouth – big enough to pick up her eggs or even chicks and move them. I unintentionally disturbed her on the nest twice, and the next day her eggs were gone.

The Chuck feeds on the wing during the night, opening its big mouth up to two inches wide to catch moths and other nocturnal flying insects. Its flight is soundless. I have seen it resting horizontally on a branch, and when it flew off, there was no sound at all from its wings.

Chucks winter in Central America and northern South America, returning to nest in Florida and north to North Carolina and Virginia. The Whippoorwill nests from the Carolinas into Canada. One night in early spring, I heard both birds calling the same night. The Chuck stayed in my woods from March until September, while the Whippoorwill flew on north.

I’m hoping that the renewal of my woods to its original sandhill habitat will entice the Chuck-will’s-widow to return someday.

—END—

Thanks for reading!

Your writer on the wing,

Charlene

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