Encounter: Large-tailed Nightjar

When the dim, shadowy silence of the leaf-litter suddenly takes wing, it's either a ghost or a nightjar that sets your heart racing. Our search that began in the hunt for a peacock feather took us to the adorable Large-tailed Nightjar

The Large Tailed Nightjar wrapped up in silence. Notice the white frill on the throat; in some individuals it is supposedly prominent enough to be called a throat patch

"The first bird I searched for was the nightjar, which used to nest in the valley. Its song is like the sound of a stream of wine spilling from a height into a deep and booming cask. It is an odorous sound, with a bouquet that rises to the quiet sky. In the glare of day it would seem thinner and drier, but dusk mellows it and gives it vintage. If a song could smell, this song would smell of crushed grapes and almonds and dark wood. 


The sound spills out, and none of it is lost. The whole wood brims with it. Then it stops. Suddenly, unexpectedly. But the ear hears it still, a prolonged and fading echo, draining and winding out among the surrounding trees".

- J.A. Baker (The Peregrine)

The peafowl feather that led us to the nightjar

It all started over a feather.

It was a nice November afternoon, hotter than usual, and I along with four kids, including two of my own, was looking for bird feathers in an overgrown corner of the garden. I located a peacock feather, not the regular ornate one that Krishna prefers but one from the bird's flanks – a lovely feather with alternating bands of white and darkest grey. As I proceeded to inform everyone the name of the feather’s owner a voice called out from the deepest bushes.

Voice from the bushes: “This feather does not belong to the peacock”
Me: “Then?”
Voice from the bushes: “It belongs to a brown bird!”
Me: (Convinced he has seen a Peafowl fledgling) “It’s the young one you are looking at.”
Voice from the bushes: “No, it flew.”

Peafowl fledglings do not fly. They make a beeline behind their mother and tirelessly move about the garden, in perennial awe of the marvelous world around them. So that’s what we had - a brown bird that flew from the ground under the bushes one fine November noon!

Excellent camouflage - the bird is strongly patterned yet merges with the leaf litter

I did not have to wait long. The very next day as I walked down a garden path, crunching leaves underfoot, a pigeon-sized brown bird took off from near my feet. Before I could recover and take the next step another flew. Then another. It suddenly dawned on me that I had seen my first nightjar, specifically the Large-tailed Nightjar (Caprimulgus macrurus) by inadvertently disturbing its roost. Henceforth, the afternoons were occupied.

It soon became clear that the nightjar preferred regular roosts. Also, if disturbed, it flew in pre-set hops to other roosts. So, actually, it had a few favorite roosting spots. Every afternoon I would know I could look for it at any of the four locations and if I was careful enough, it allowed a close enough approach for naked eye observation. There was something mesmerizing about the way it sat crouched amidst the litter. Never did it ever betray a slightest hint of movement, not even a blink of its eye. Neither did it take undue alarm at my approach (except when I got too close it flew to another of its roosts). The camouflage was perfect – if I did not know it was there, I could never have located it except when it flew. Quite often I would scan a roost knowing it is around and miss it completely. The silence it wrapped itself in made the camouflage perfect.

The first thing that struck me was its flight. Except for the sharp rustle of the dry leaf litter at takeoff the flight was absolutely silent. It was not slow, it was quick enough for a getaway but as the feathers cut the air there was no audible sound – no swoosh, rustle or whisper. The flight itself was a bit awkward – like a drone dipping sideways, alternating on each side, revealing prominent white wingbars -- which really are the buff tips of the coverts. The noontime flights were always short – they were more like quick darts to another roost. 

Usually, as soon as the bird took off, it quickly gained height and descended to another roost barely 50-70 m away, most often on the other side of a wall or barrier, but sometimes below another bush and occasionally in the open but always in abundant leaf litter. Sometimes, it perched briefly on a branch, always along its length (never crosswise) and then quickly descended to roost. So eager was it to get to a roost that, occasionally, it descended too soon, discovered a barrier and had to turn sharply to evade it.

The beautiful liquid eye, the thin broad bill and the whiskers

Other times the bird remained quiet, well concealed and well camouflaged, but looking out with large, oval liquid eyes, which certainly gave it excellent peripheral vision and remained ever open. The wide gape of the bill reminded me of the Frogmouth, as also the small whiskers near the beak -- which was wafer-thin and enormously broad at the base, resembling an equilateral triangle.

The breast has a neat parting and a mottled appearance. The buff edges of the scapulars create the side wing-bars.

The tail was thick and square; the primaries crossed over the back had thick rounded ends. A very prominent white stripe ran from the base of the beak across the face and below the eye. The feathers of the chest were neatly cloven and gave off a very mottled appearance (the general pattern being close to that of Mottled Wood Owls). The colors were shades of grays, buff and browns, with some black on the scapulars prominently edged with buff. There was a very prominent horizontal frill or “white beard” just above the parting of chest feathers. This is also described as a prominent white throat patch in some accounts but it appeared more as a frilly bib to me.

The roosts were all in well-sheltered places -- the sort of nooks where one might walk past without peering in.

This roost is against a masonry wall and below a thick bush. There is no approach from three sides.

A neat nook amid reeds - thick vegetation covers it almost entirely. The Nightjar was in the small cave-like opening in the middle.

Against an overgrown bank -- this was my best view. The first and the third picture from the top are from this roost.

This may be a nigh jar feather -- can't be certain, though. Any guesses?

Towards the end of the week I saw the Large-tailed Nightjar much better, especially if it was present in one of the roosts. I tried to locate more individuals in the garden but had no luck before alarming the birds into flight. Also, I never spotted it at night. Some nightjars are known to sit on roads at night but I never encountered the Large-tailed Nightjar along the roads near the garden, or any path in the garden itself. It's quite possible that this species does not take to the roads -- though I will have to continue to look.

Text and photographs by Sahastrarashmi
Read all Encounter posts on The Green Ogre

The Cicada's Night Out

Cicadas are diurnal, so what was this one doing up late at night?

Lo! on the topmost pine, a solitary cicada
Vainly attempts to clasp one last red beam of sun.
- Unknown Japanese poet

Nearly everyone has heard cicadas but most people confuse their music (some think it is noise) with the nocturnal chatter of crickets and tree frogs. But there's an easy tip to never be mistaken again, for in most cases cicadas never sing at night. Unless perhaps they've had a bad day, or maybe if the moon is too full, or if artificial lighting so intensely mimics daylight.

Cicada music varies with the species but usually, it resembles a gradual crescendo of violas and violins played in shrill, frenetic unison. The sound has nothing to do with the cicada's mouth. Like all insects, it does not have vocal chords. So how does a cicada rustle up that loud, penetrating din? The sound one hears is made not by one cicada but by thousands of them. These forest fiddlers rub together their ribbed membranes, called tymbals, which envelop hollow abdominal chambers that amplify the noise. Some species have been measured at over 100 decibels.

And it's almost always a love song.

An obscure Greek ode, translated roughly, goes thus: “We call you happy, O Cicada, because after you have drunk a little dew in the treetops you sing like a queen.” Certainly, that Hellenic bard didn't mean Freddy Mercury? For notwithstanding the poetic license to ascribe femininity to any creature or thing that makes music, cicada musicians are males serenading their mates. Females, unlike in our species, are relatively quiet.

And it's not dew that cicadas drink but tree sap. They have mouthparts adapted for piercing and more than a few people have complained that they've been bitten. Odd, because cicadas have no need for blood – they'd probably die of indigestion or food poisoning if they consumed it. Neither are they unreasonably aggressive. The only plausible reason is that the hungry cicada mistook the victim for a tree. Or it could be a case of mistaken identity – they were probably stung by the Cicada Killer Wasp, which predates on cicadas.

I've had many close encounters with cicadas since childhood when I used to wander about groves and grope the barks of avenue trees to locate the source of the phantom noise. But they were all daytime encounters. A couple of months ago, on a visit to the Kulgi Nature Camp in Dandeli, we were ambling about after dinner in pitch darkness with only the cold white beam of our headlamps illumining the path ahead. Suddenly, one of us stepped on something and it made an angry buzzing noise, prompting the offender to spring back in shock. Curious to know what it was, we shone our lights on it and the grumpy fellow buzzed a little more.

It was a cicada, but how very unusual to discover it at night. Now, now, do cicadas have a night life? Was he exiled, like Cacophonix, from the great village banquet? Or had some visitors from Bangalore taken the infectious BPO lifestyle a little too far? Or maybe it just fell off a tree?

We had no clear idea. So we took some pictures and let the guy go. Have you any theories or explanations of the cicada's night out? We'll be glad and grateful for any information you can share.

Text and photo by Beej