Whipporwills

[Devildog]

What has happened to all the whipporwills? Man I used to here them all night long when I was younger.
____________________________________________________
Take care all, Jim

1951 John Deere B (poppin johnny)
Semper Fidelis

 

[TerryinMD]

Became Whipporwents.... /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Sorry couldn't resist!!! I don't ever remember hearing any - ever. What part of the country do they habitate?

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

Terry:
As recently as a couple of years ago, I heard them all summer in Maryland - Severn River near Annapolis. Not this summer.

Charlie Iliff

 

[Bird]

I've sometimes wondered whether it's just because I don't get outside as much late at night. I used to hear them all the time when I was a kid in southern Oklahoma, but have only heard them one night here and that was over a year ago.

Bird

 

[TerryinMD]

I live just outside Sharpsburg, MD (Antitem Battlefield) along the Potomac River. We are surrounded by cattle farms and National Parks. We have all of the typical night noises: crickets, katydids, cicadaes, owls, etc. But no whipporwills.

Do the whipporwills have a specific habitat? Geez, we have lots of other wildlife. Bluebirds, Baltimore Orioles (not the baseball team either...), Goldfinches, Pilated and Downy Woodpeckers, you name it. But, alas and alec, no whipporwills...

 

[teherzog]

They must have moved south, here in central North Carolina it's a toss-up who can make more noise at dusk, Whipporwills or Bob Whites.
Tom H

 

[Devildog]

Tom, I very seldom hear them here in the blueridge mountains anymore but there are plenty of bob whites, I have just started researching this to see how to get them back in the area. If anyone knows of or sees a site I would really apprietiate it/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
__________________________________________________
Take care all, Jim

1951 John Deere B (poppin johnny)
Semper Fidelis

 

[Tdog]

We hear them regularly here [SE Louisiana].

My daughter was in town a few months ago & I got her up just before dawn one day to see the space station pass overhead. We saw it clearly, but what struck her as much, were the whipporill calls that played as background music to the sight overhead.

 

[kerr]

Ever tried to sleep outside when one roost over yer tent?HOLE-E-COW! Maybe the grasshoppers eat em all.

 

[GlueGuy]

The Whip-poor-will is considered to be a "bird in jeapardy" due to the loss of habitat. It was "blue-listed" in 1980-81, then upgraded to "special concern" in 1982 when the population seemed to be stabilized. It was again blue-listed in 1986. My reference was written in 1992, so I don't have any recent information.

The Whip-poor-will nests in lowland, moist deciduous forests and/or mixed deciduous/coniferous woodlands or montane pine-oak woodlands. The bird does not build a nest, but lays eggs on well-drained ground near the edge of a wood or in open woodland. The depression around the eggs is not dug, but merely a consequence of the nesting adult sitting on the eggs.

The reasons for the decline is considered to be primarily habitat fragmentation and loss, combined with the susceptibility of ground nesting birds to predation.

The GlueGuy