Return of the Chuck

Photo from avesphoto.com and probaby © by them.

Ever since we’ve been living in our house in the south Jersey woods we’ve had at least one of these elusive night-singing birds nesting nearby. If you are lucky enough to find one sleeping on a tree branch during the day, that’s about what it would look like. I’ve never seen one here, though they’re present from mid-April through September every year. Mostly we know they’ve arrived when we start hearing their calls after night has fallen. This year’s bird arrived and started calling early Monday morning. Yesterday evening I was able to record it on my phone:

Chuck-Will’s-Widow

I’ve increased the volume, so the background noise is also louder, it’s not this loud usually, but I wanted to make it easy to hear. This species is a “name-sayer,” it says its name, or something reasonably close. Unmistakeable, though it can be confused with a close relative the Whippoorwill, another name-sayer. Once you hear the two birds calling, the difference is clear. Whip calls are quicker and don’t have that deliberate space between the first two notes.

The return of the Chuck is a sure sign of warm weather returning, and sure enough we’ve just had two summery hot days, though today it’s cooler again. The Chuck may not call now until temperatures warm up a bit more again. We like hearing them. Sometimes there are rival birds nearby and there will be a vociferous call and response vocal duel between two or three of them for a few minutes, but they don’t usually call more than 10 minutes at a time, and mostly just after dark or just before dawn. We’ve had occasional complaints from overnight guests, but we’re used to them and often don’t even wake up.

Night calling birds are fairly uncommon, and this is one I like having around, even if I never get to see him in the daytime.