IF you happen to be a Lesser Nighthawk - one of estimated 800 that gather to feed over the waves each evening as the sun sets over the violet Mohave Mountains. Trickling at first, you can see individuals and small groups of these graceful flyers skip over rooftops on their way to the lake. But look through binoculars (or even better, a spotting scope) above the dimming surface of the water, and you can see a vast ballroom of shadowy dancers pirouetting past each other as they gorge on swarms of flying insects. I managed to capture a snippet of this amazing phenomenon in some shakey digital footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2SQIqscPp8&feature=youtu.be
Lesser nighthawks have a unique flight style, they flit and bounce as if they are weightless, changing direction haphazardly, rocking their wings like showman pilots. If they fly close enough, you might hear their flight call: a soft-spoken, trilling coo, that sounds almost inorganic.
These beautiful creautures are masters of camouflage. Most birds solve the problem "Where to sleep?" by hiding in dense foliage at night, thereby thwarting most daytime predators and catching some peaceful zzzs. Nighthawks, like many other species of the nightjar family, rely on their cryptic plumage patterning to make them invisible to predators as they doze on open desert slopes in broad daylight. But that begs the question, are nighthawks aware of this phenomenon? Do they know how clever their camouflage is, or do they just rest easy because 99% of the time, everything walks right past?
Either way, it works. I know because we are lucky enough to have 2 pairs that regularly roost in the empty lot across the street from our field house. Its not an exciting place, just a rocky patch where a house might be built someday, with a smattering of small creosotes. There's nowhere to hide, but even the neighbors' dogs don't seem to notice the sneaky nighthawks napping in plain sight. I've walked within meters of one, specifically hoping to catch it in my camera, and didn't see it until it launched into the air. Luckily, I managed to keep an eye on it and saw where it landed again.
The craziest thing is these birds are so confident in their camouflage, they don't even build a nest for their eggs! They lay a pair of small, speckly eggs right onto the sand. They are doting parents, keeping the clutch warm at night and shading them from the sun during the day. But parents' gotta eat sometimes, and the delicate coloring of the eggs keep them hidden in plain sight. I've wanted to find a nest and photograph it, but realized that walking around looking for perfectly camouflaged eggs might be a recipe for disaster - for the eggs, that is!
For now, I just look forward to each evening when their soft trilling echos over our roof.
