Nighthawks are more often heard than seen, so people have a tendency to ignore them. There is just this nasal “peent… peent” noise occasionally heard in the background, about supper time in the north, and often in areas where there is a lot of human development. It is a sound characteristic of old warehouse districts after the workday is done and almost no one is still around, save the security guards and the occasional starving artist looking to find a place free of telephone wires and power lines to sit and observe the sunset. These wonderfully beneficial and under-appreciated birds take flight at dusk.

Nighthawks are the urban cousins of the whippoorwill, whose song is so very different you would normally not suspect they relate. They do look similar, as both are cryptically colored, and both have wide, gaping mouths surrounded with whisker-like feathers, for catching equally aerobatic insects in flight. This is a service they perform without many folks’ knowledge or thanks.

The reason we see nighthawks over old industrial places and shopping mall parking lots is that they favor nesting on the flat rooftops of buildings where they are seldom bothered by man or four footed predators. So, at sunset over or near an industrial town, the nighthawks fly and perform their aerobatic power flights to impress their mates or their competition. They fly as high as they can, and dive, dive, dive like daring peregrine falcons. They have a white patch of feathers in each of their elegantly long, pointed wings which catches the light, or transmits it, depending on where they are in relation to the sun and observer. At the last second, they begin to pull up, and in doing so their wing feathers make an incredible booming sound at the bottom of the dive. When you get to watch and hear a few of these birds gather for this spectacle, it is a privilege, a personal air show, and well worth taking time out of your day to appreciate it.