Dancing in the Dark: Nightjars of India

I’ve always thought there’s an aura of mystery surrounding this strange family of birds. During the day you won’t see them at all, but come dusk and nightfall, and there — beneath the dim portico lights of a forest resthouse — you’ll spot these long, slim-winged mottled brown birds hawking, dipping, and diving in and out. Their wide open mouths are as wide as that of any baby bird, whiskers bristling as they snaffle up moths, crickets, and other insects foolish enough to fly at this time.

There are nine species of nightjars in India (family: Caprimulgidae), all wearing camouflage colours and soft feathers: mottled, vermiculated, streaked, and barred in buff, brown, rufous, black, grey, and white. They are usually a perfect match for the branches they lie horizontally along or the ground they squat on during the day; their feathers resembling bark or dried leaves. Winkling them out is no easy task, and even if you do, as Salim Ali has mentioned, it’s difficult to definitely state their name, rank, and serial number in the field. Even all the good books describe them in relation to one another (this one is more rufous than that…etc.), which is impossible to do in the field because you’ll never have all nine species lined up in front of you for comparison! But thankfully, there are cues and clues which enable you to figure out who is who, in most cases, from their very different calls and songs.

The largest of the lot, at 40-41 cm, is the great eared nightjar (Lyncornis macrotis), a large, richly coloured, handsome dude with prominent ear tufts found in the Northeast and Western Ghats. Come dusk, it circles high over the canopy with buoyant wingbeats, before descending and uttering its giveaway haunting “pee-wheek, pee-wheek” whistle.

The grey nightjar (Caprimulgus indicus), aka the Indian jungle nightjar (27-32 cm), is resident all over the subcontinent except the Northwest. It is greyish brown, heavily marked with black. Its song is a loud, “chunk-chunk-chunk”, and it hawks insects in forest clearings, scrub, and open forest.

The European or Eurasian nightjar (Caprimulgus eurpaeus), 25 cm, is mottled in grey and utters a soft, churring, “quoit-quoit” call in flight. It’s mainly a summer passage migrant to Pakistan and northwest Gujarat. The Egyptian nightjar (Caprimulgus aegyptius) is 25 cm long and ought not to bother us much as it is a summer visitor to the semi-desert areas of southwest Pakistan.

Sykes’s nightjar (Caprimulgus mahrattensis) at 23 cm is a small grey nightjar that breeds in the semi-desert and desert areas of Kutch and Pakistan but winters south up to southern Karnataka and east to Central Uttar Pradesh. It purrs much like the Eurasian nightjar, but softer, and on the wing the male utters a low “chuck-chuck-chuck. It likes hunting by the sides of canals and embankments and roosts on the ground.

Larger, at 33 cm, is the large-tailed or long-tailed nightjar (Caprimulgus macrurus) whose giveaway song is a loud, resonant, “chaunk-chaunk-chaunk” repeated 100 times a minute — a sound similar to that of an axe striking wood. A resident and partial migrant, it is found in the Himalayas and up to Andhra Pradesh in the south, often squatting on forest paths and roads in its habitat.

Endemic to India and Sri Lanka, Jerdon’s nightjar (Caprimulgus atripennus), 28 cm, is a fairly common resident in Central and South India. It is a strongly patterned, warmly coloured bird, whose song is a series of tremulous, liquid calls, “ch-wo-wo” repeated 20 times a minute.

The Indian nightjar (Caprimulgus asiaticus), 24 cm, is a small, short-winged, common nightjar found all over the country, often squatting on cart tracks and paths after dusk, in thinly wooded plains and foothills. It utters a “chuck-chuck-chuck-tuckaroo” call that has been compared to the sound of a ping-pong ball bouncing on the table to a rest or a pebble skittering over ice (due to which, they were known as “ice-birds” during the colonial days), as well as a staccato “qwit-qwit” call in flight.

We finally have the savanna nightjar (Caprimulgus affinis), 23 cm, another widespread resident (except in the extreme east) that likes open forests, stony areas, and scrub, and gives itself away with its vehement sounding, strident “dheet” call.

These masters of camouflage breed (depending on the species) between January and October, and are minimalists in that they lay their (usually) one or two eggs on the bare ground, or on a few dry leaves. Even when the birds are pointed out, while sitting horizontally on a branch, they virtually become one with the bark and wood, the moment you take your eyes off them. But if on the road or a jungle path, their eyes will shine — sometimes ruby red — from the light of your headlights, or else you may come across them darting under the lights of a resthouse where the moths and crickets have gathered to dance. 

Worldwide there are 79 species of “typical” nightjars on every continent except Antarctica and islands such as Seychelles and Madagascar. The 10 species found in the New World are called night-hawks. Due to their crepuscular habits and secretive nature, they have not been studied intensively, and little is known of their status (though some species are threatened). Those, like our Indian nightjar, that love squatting in the middle of the road or jungle paths, get dazzled by vehicle lights and all too often become roadkill — a major cause of their decline. They will also, at dusk, flit around livestock, snapping up the insects disturbed by their hooves, and later, hunt under streetlights, where insects swarm, flying through the clouds with their maws agape. Prey is held in upright bills and swallowed whole, the bird returning to a favourite perch to enjoy its meal.

These strange, somewhat Gothic, moth-dusky birds — dancers in the dark — with their freewheeling flight and eerie calls really need to be given more attention. However, that seems to be the last thing they appear to want as they merge into the woodwork or ground and vanish!