Common Nighthawk (Chordeiles minor)

Abundance and stability of populations of a chewing louse,Mulcticola macrocephalus(Phthiraptera: Philopteridae), on common nighthawks,Chordeiles minor(Caprimulgiformes: Caprimulgidae) in Manitoba, Canada

“…Nighthawks (Aves: Caprimulgiformes: Caprimulgidae) are aerial predators feeding on a variety of insects (Holyoak 2001). The common nighthawk, Chordeiles minor (Forster), breeds throughout North America, undertaking a long migratory flight to winter as far south as northern Argentina (Brigham et al 2011). As such, these birds face considerable risk throughout their range, from habitat modification, predation and parasitism, exposure to pesticides, and depletion of their insect food base (Nebel et al 2010).…”

“…The life history of the common nighthawk differs substantially from that of the feral pigeon, and these differences may be important for comparing louse populations on these two hosts. The common nighthawk arrives in southern Manitoba in May and June from a winter range in South America, it has a short nesting period from mid-June through July, the flightless young are present from late June to early August, and the parents and young of the year begin migrating south again as early as late July (Taylor 2003; Brigham et al 2011). Lice were obtained from common nighthawks only while the birds were visitors in Manitoba.…”

Elevated temperatures are associated with stress in rooftop-nesting Common Nighthawk (Chordeiles minor) chicks

“…In contrast, chicks of semi-precocial species, such as Black-Legged Kittiwakes ( Rissa tridactyla ) ( Kitaysky et al , 2003 ), Red-legged Kittiwakes ( R. brevirostris ) ( Kitaysky et al , 2001 ), Tufted Puffins ( F. cirrhata ) ( Kitaysky et al , 2005 ), Ring-Billed Gulls ( L. delawarensis ) ( Chin et al , 2013 ), and Grey-faced Petrels ( Pterodroma macroptera gouldi ) ( Adams et al , 2008 ), have the capacity to mount a stress response. Because nighthawks are also semi-precocial ( Brigham et al , 2011 ), it might be expected that chicks are also capable of mounting a stress response. Indeed, the majority of nighthawk chicks in this study did mount a stress response to handling restraint.…”

“…If exposure to high temperatures routinely increases baseline CORT, either through direct temperature effects or indirect effects on dehydration, and high baseline CORT is negatively related to chick survival, this raises the possibility that future temperatures associated with climate change trends could make rooftops unsuitable for nighthawk nesting. If nighthawks are attracted to urban habitats as refugia in response to reductions of available natural habitats ( Brigham et al , 2011 ), increasing temperatures and the ‘urban heat island’ effect could render the rooftop nesting strategy as untenable. If so, nighthawks could be eliminated as a breeding species from this region and other similar regions where agricultural landscapes have reduced open natural habitats to low levels on the landscape.…”

Remote estimation of overwintering home ranges in an elusive, migratory nocturnal bird

“…For some species, vocalizations occur independent of annual cycle stage, facilitating year-round detection (e.g., echolocation in bats; O'Farrell, Miller, & Gannon, 1999). However, in birds, most nocturnal species do not vocalize outside of the breeding season (e.g., eastern whip-poor-will Antrostomus vociferus, Ridgely & Gwynne, 1989;northern saw-whet Owl Aegolius acadicus, Rasmussen, Sealy, & Cannings, 2008) or there is no information on nonbreeding vocalizations (e.g., common nighthawk Chordeiles minor, Brigham, Ng, Poulin, & Grindal, 2011). Thus, due to their difficulty to locate and capture, using technologies such as VHF transmitters to quantify space use, which require in situ work on the nonbreeding grounds, is often nearly impossible to implement, as basic distributional data of most populations are lacking (e.g.…”