Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Nighthawks swoop out of Greek myth
HOT SPRINGS — National Park College students chose Nighthawks as the school’s mascot last fall — the first mascot for the institution since 2003.
The school doesn’t have varsity sports, but college president John Hogan announced in March he expects the school to begin men’s and women’s club basketball in the 2017-2018 term.
What are nighthawks? “Nighthawk” can be a metaphor, a synonym for “night owl” — a person who stays active at night. Also it’s the nickname of the F-117 stealth attack aircraft. But the original nighthawks are migratory birds.
One species, the common nighthawk, visits Arkansas in summer. It favors forested hillsides such as those in Garland County, near the college.
“Nighthawk” is a paradoxical name for these birds, because they are not hawks, nor are they exclusively active at night. They bear little resemblance to the red-tail hawk or the red-shouldered hawk found so abundantly in the Ouachita Mountains. Nighthawks are more akin to swifts and whippoorwills than they are to true hawks.
Bird scientists place nighthawks among an order of birds called Caprimulgiformes. Their relatives, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, include about
120 species with soft plumage, such as nightjars, potoos, frogmouths, owlet-frogmouths and the aberrant oilbird of South America.
“Most are twilight- or night-flying birds,” according to the encyclopedia. “Many produce sounds that are startling, strange or weirdly beautiful.” (According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds website, the call of the common nighthawk is an electric peent, but it reminds me of the whippoorwill.)
“The calls of Caprimulgiformes are surrounded by an aura of mystery richly endowed to elicit interest and sometimes fear from humans,” the encyclopedia continues.
The Greek word Caprimulgus means “goat sucker.” It comes from a mistaken belief in ancient Greece that birds in the nighthawk family, while perched on the ground with their broad mouths turned upward, would suck the milk of goats.
They do have uncommonly large mouths, but Caprimulgiformes are insect-eaters and attracted to insects around the goats.
GOOD CAMOUFLAGE
Sibley’s field guide lists the length of a common nighthawk from beak to tail as 9½ inches and the wing span as 24 inches. It is about the length and weight of a robin but with a longer wing span and an overall sleeker build.
The distinguishing field marking for the nighthawk is the white bar on both sides of the wings between the elbow and tip. These bars are easily seen when the bird flies.
Male and female nighthawks are almost identical, but a narrow strip of white feathers is displayed on the underside of the tail of the male.
Nighthawks are seldom seen when they are not flying. During most of the daylight hours, they sleep, without the slightest movement, posed silently on the ground or on a low limb.
Camouflage is their most powerful defense.
Other species of nighthawks exist in other parts of the world, but besides the common nighthawk, the lesser nighthawk and the Antillean nighthawk are the only other North American species.
BUG CATCHERS
Nighthawks can typically be seen of an evening flying over trees, fields and cities or in the dark of night making elegant looping circles around artificial lights. They are drawn to feed on insects that swarm around incandescent lights, and I see them regularly each fall at high school football games as they erratically swoop and swerve on slender wings amid the Friday night lights.
They fly open-mouthed, scooping in insects.
I counted more than 200 nighthawks over Hot Springs Lakeside’s High School stadium one October as I waited for kickoff. I suspect that this large group was in migration and had the good luck to pass over just as the bugs gathered around the tall lights over the playing field.
They fed furiously on the wing for a while, but by halftime all were gone, headed south.
According to the Arkansas Audubon Society Field List, nighthawks show up in Arkansas in late March or April. They remain through the summer to nest and raise young in early November before returning to South America for the winter.
The Cornell Lab site lists the conservation status of the nighthawk as “least concern.” However, in the continental United States, common nighthawk populations declined by 61 percent between 1966 and 2014, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. Canadian populations also dropped.
The 2014 State of the Birds Report listed the common nighthawk as a “common bird in steep decline,” and the species rates an 11 out of 20 on the Partners in Flight Continental Concern Score.
Threats include reduction in mosquitoes and other aerial insects due to pesticides and habitat loss including open woods in rural areas and flat gravel rooftops in urban ones. Environmentalists have had some success creating nesting habitat by placing gravel pads in the corners of rubberized roofs and by controlled burning and clearing of patches of forest to create open nesting sites.
CHOOSING A MASCOT
The student vote that led to the selection of the school mascot took part in stages. Other options that emerged in early rounds were Lakers (mascot of the school’s progenitor, Garland County Community College), Thoroughbreds, Bison, Explorers/Conquistadors, Bathers, Rangers, Mountain Lions, Thunderbirds and Bears. Other, less popular choices included National Park Platypodes, Vapors and Wade’s Hesitant Squirrels.
A Google search of college mascots found other schools with Nighthawks as a mascot include Newbury College in Brookline, Mass.; the University of North Georgia at Dahlonega; Thomas University in Thomasville, Ga.; and Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale.
Eagle mascots fly over three colleges and 18 high schools in Arkansas; Cardinals grace five high schools; and there are Blue Jays at Nevada, Bluebirds at Mount Pleasant, Redhawks at Center Ridge and Warhawks at Mount Vernon-Enola. But, in Arkansas, only National Park has Nighthawks.