Is this a baby Hawk? If so, what kind? I was scanning some of my old slides and came across this one from May 2000 in Naperville, IL. The bird was resting on the rail of my deck, about 6 feet from the sliding door. It was in no hurry to leave so I manged to get this shot using Fuji Velvia. I don't have any idea what the shooting data was.
Tom, this is not a baby hawk. It is a nighthawk or some other kind of nightjar in your area. When I was monitoring the Peregrine falcons we released in Regina I got quite a few calls where a nighthawk was in the same position as your bird.
It's a Common Nighthawk, and that's their natural resting position. Despite the term "hawk" being in its name, it's actually nightjar like a Whip-poor-will. That tiny bill is in front of a huge mouth used for catching insects.
Tom- The "hawk" part of the name Nighthawk is a reference to what you saw- a resemblance to hawks. In the air, these birds tend to have fast wing-beats and pointed wings, and superficially look like falcons.
This leads me to a story about names. Nighthawks and nightjars are in an order of birds called "Caprimulgiformes". I know, it's a mouthful but it means "goatsucker" in latin. This comes from a myth that the European Nightjar would descend in the evening and steal the milk from your trusty nanny goat. Maybe the fact that the species is active in the evening and has such a big mouth led to the myth. This leads to another story- in Puerto Rico there is the myth of a diminutive monster called "Chupacabra", which is sighted every now and then, like Bigfoot. In Spanish, "chupa" comes from chupar- to suck and "cabra" is a female goat.
Last edited by John Chardine; 05-27-2011 at 07:42 PM.