Re: [cobirds] Common Nighthawk

I am unaware that Common Goldeneyes ever give their nighthawk-like calls in flight or at night.  These are not the equivalent of other duck quacks; I believe they are only given by males displaying on the water, while throwing their heads back.  Many ducks do give display sounds during courtship chase flights, but I think this would be quite unlikely at night or at high altitude in any species, and BNA's description of the display flight in Common Goldeneye appears to correspond to the very short-range "leapfrogging" flight I've seen them do from the back to the front of courting groups on the water, without vocalizing.  Furthermore, male Common Goldeneyes make loud whistles with their wings in flight (usually?  always?), and if you were close enough to hear the call, you likely would have been close enough to hear the wing whistles as well.

If the sound came from high in the air, we may be able to rule out American Woodcock as well, because according to BNA and Sibley, they only make those nighthawk-like "peent" sounds from the ground, BEFORE taking to the wing in their nocturnal display flights.  The sounds they make in the air are high-pitched chirping twitters (made by their wings).

If you hear a Common Nighthawk in Colorado prior to late May, there's an extremely good chance you're hearing an imitation, probably by European Starlings, which have fooled me several times -- at least during the day.  A call from high altitude at night is more consistent with a nighthawk, but the date is more than eight weeks earlier than the species would be expected in the area. 

Nathan Pieplow
Boulder

On Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 8:27 AM, Greg Pasquariello <greg@pasq.net> wrote:

That’s interesting, I hadn’t considered that.  I just listened to a recording and I concur; they do sound similar.  I don’t have enough of the memory to say that was what I heard, but it’s certainly more likely than either a 2 month early nighthawk or a woodcock.

The call was fairly high (altitude-wise) and that helped it sound very much like a nighthawk, but there’s no reason it couldn’t have been a passing goldeneye.

Regards

-Greg Pasquariello

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Roxborough, CO

On Mar 15, 2014, at 8:19 AM, David Ely <mountainplover@gmail.com> wrote:

Co birders,

The other very real possibility is common goldeneyes flying up the river calling.  They can sound almost exactly like common nighthawks.

David Ely
Salem, MA

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