Eastern Whip-poor-will observed in Ontario in May by @edporopat on iNaturalist
The odor struck me as soon as I stepped from my car to the edge of a moonlit hayfield. It was early June, a few nights before first cut, and the waist-level Orchardgrass and Smooth Brome glistened with dew. The pungent, almost rotten smell took me by surprise.
At the time, I didn’t know that methanol and acetone gases emitted from grass reach peak concentrations on calm June evenings, when cooling air reaches its dew point—nor that scent molecules are more easily detected after dewfall because there’s less water vapor in the air to dilute them. And while I was aware that the wetness of a dog’s nose enhances its sense of smell, I didn’t know that my own nose absorbs more scent molecules when moistened by the mixing of cool (inhaled) and warm (exhaled) air.
I might have never looked into these phenomena had I not ended up on the side of a quiet road under a waxing moon, listening for Eastern Whip-poor-wills. And yet some might still call that night a bust. During the three years I’ve surveyed for this species between the confluence of the Ottauquechee and Connecticut Rivers in Hartland and a floodplain hayfield in Quechee, I’ve entered only one value on my data sheets: 0.
The Vermont Center for Ecostudies and the Nightjar Survey Network have been monitoring whip-poor-wills since 2007. That’s when New Hampshire Audubon and the Center for Conservation Biology at William and Mary convened a group of cooperating scientists through the Northeast Coordinated Bird Monitoring Partnership. Over the years, the collaboration has expanded to include sixteen agencies and organizations from Florida to Canada, each coordinating volunteer participation in standardized roadside counts of whip-poor-wills, Common Nighthawks, and Chuck-will’s-widow, a denizen of mid-Atlantic and southeastern forests.
Whip-poor-wills have suffered from the well documented crash of insect populations as well as the loss of their favored breeding habitat to development and forest maturation. These and other stressors have resulted in a rangewide population decline estimated at 70% over the last 50 years as well as disappearance of the species from at least 77% of the areas where it was formerly observed in Vermont.
So more often than not (much more often) attempts to locate whip-poor-wills come up empty. A recent analysis of Nightjar Survey Network data found that whip-poor-wills typically occupy 8% of the survey stations located in Vermont’s northern forest, second only in rarity to New Hampshire’s 7%. So, I’m out here to count whip-poor-wills, not to hear them.
Even on nights when volunteers like me hear no whip-poor-wills, our observations contribute to their conservation. A whip-poor-will recovery plan, drafted by Conservation Science Director Ryan Rebozo for Vermont’s Scientific Advisory Group on Birds, emphasizes the importance of population monitoring. (The recovery plan is not yet public, as it’s awaiting review and adoption.) Monitoring results can be used by the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Environment Canada, and land trusts throughout the East to set conservation priorities and develop habitat management plans.
I might hear a whip-poor-will on this route someday—the stretch between Clay Hill Farm and Three Pines Farm seems most promising—but I can find them elsewhere under the right conditions with the help of eBird, our whip-poor-will survey coordinator, Sara Zahendra, or with suggestions from other colleagues and fellow surveyors. Ryan and VCE Software Developer Jason Loomis encountered four “whips” on their route through Corinth, just 20 miles north and two nights after my count.
But believe it or not, I’m neither bored nor disappointed on zero-count nights. I relish the chance to pay close attention outside at night, something I rarely do otherwise, and to do so as part of a community ritual. I imagine someone else listening quietly under the same clear sky and bright moon in the Champlain Valley.
I try to decipher coyote song. I listen to Gray Treefrogs trilling, Spring Peepers in chorus, and the occasional twang of a Green Frog. I wonder which of Vermont’s 16 cricket and 20 katydid species are filling the air with stridulation. And I watch invisible winds aloft sweep the day’s few lingering clouds over the horizon.
At more than half of the stops, I hear the sound of moving water at different pitches, from a high gurgle that I could leap across to a low rumble emanating from a broad waterfall in downtown Quechee. From one survey station near Harlow Brook, I can see a field where my two boys used to play with a group of friends, and I hear their free-spirited laughter through the shadows and across ten years.
Just as arresting are the things I don’t hear: the Big Brown Bat swooping overhead to snag moths with the membrane that connects its hind limbs to its tail; the moon’s silver reflection on the ribbon of water that I fish on weekends; and the brush of dew-drenched grass on the belly of a deer as it moves along the hedgerow of a surprisingly pungent field.
Five years ago, a team of researchers deployed 759 autonomous recording units (ARUs) from North Carolina to Maine to determine how whip-poor-wills respond to a range of forestry practices. Their 2024 paper in the Journal of Environmental Management highlights the advantages of automated detection, and its potential for uptake into large-scale monitoring.
While VCE uses ARUs and camera traps in other monitoring efforts, I like to think that our nightjar surveys will always involve human observers, even if we add ARUs. After all, there’s so much else to notice, even when the whip-poor-wills aren’t calling.
