Cool critters: Scan the skies - and ballparks - for the common nighthawk

Imagine running full speed with your mouth wide open to collect tiny food snacks flitting about in midair.

Meet the common nighthawk, a shadowy figure – with blazes of white – that catches flying insects mostly during dusk and dawn. Sometimes, however, these pigeon-sized birds hunt at nighttime baseball games – but not for the hotdogs and popcorn. More on that later.

Talk about a misleading name. Just as the jellyfish is not a fish, the common nighthawk is not a hawk. Nor is it active only at night. Furthermore, it is no longer common.

Nighthawks are denizens of twilight that belong to the same avian family as the whip-poor-will, another bird that forages in low-light conditions. Their intricate pattern of gray, brown and black plumage helps camouflage them when they roost or sit on nests.

“Their camouflage is amazing,” said Tim O’ Brien, a long-time member of the Spokane Audubon Society. Acting on a tip, he spent four hours “carefully scanning every horizontal branch in the trees” located in a grove near the town of Vantage. Ultimately, he managed to spot 10 roosting nighthawks that other birders had missed, he said.

In flight, however, they’re easier to see. Swooping and darting through air, they move more like a bat than a bird. All the while, their long, boomerang-shaped wings flash distinctive white bars against their earthtone plumage.

Even so, because they fly mostly in low-light conditions, their loud nasal “peent” call may be the first sign that they’re overhead. O’Brien’s first encounter with a common nighthawk was by sound, not sight.

“I kept hearing this unique sound above me in the early morning one day,” O’Brien recalled. “I couldn’t see them, but kept hearing the sound,” he said.

Unlike their red-tailed hawk cousins armed with large talons to catch and kill prey, nighthawks have small, flat feet used to walk and perch on branches. And instead of eviscerating prey with talons and a hooked beak, these winged insectivores fly straight into prey, “scooping up flying insects in their wide, gaping mouths,” according to the National Audubon Society. Dinner then shoots straight down the bird’s esophagus as if sucked through a vacuum.

To consume enough insects to survive – ranging from mosquitoes, beetles and flies to swarmer termites – nighthawks must be fast and agile. Well, it turns out they fly along at an average speed of 14.5 mph while foraging, according to a 1998 study published in the journal American Midland Naturalist, where researchers used Doppler radar to measure the nighthawks’ speed.

Unfortunately, the common nighthawk isn’t as common as its name suggests. In North America, “common nighthawk numbers have plunged by almost 60 percent over the past half-century,” the Audubon Society states on its website, adding that pesticide use and habitat loss are factors in their decline. Although population numbers are down considerably in Western Washington, they remain somewhat stable east of the Cascades, according to BirdWeb, an online guide to the birds of Washington state.

Later this month and into early September, nighthawks that breed in our region form large flocks and begin their epic journey to their wintering grounds in South America, according to BirdWeb. For a fabulous show, look skyward late afternoon and early evening as the birds soar in swift, sashaying motion over open areas and near waterways.

Until then, look for nighthawks at ballparks during evening games. As you munch on peanuts, these avian attendees may well be feasting on the gazillions of insects swarming around the floodlights.

And if it happens that your team is losing, birdwatching might be a lot more fun than what’s occurring out on the field.