Puerto Rican Nightjars: Earth Month 2019, Puerto Rico Five-One Icons

Summary: Puerto Rican nightjars, active from April through July, are available in the Commonwealth as Earth Month 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One Icons.

Puerto Rican nightjar (Antrostomus noctitherus) parent with chick; Caribbean Islands National Wildlife Refuge complex; Friday, Aug. 6, 2010: Mike Morel/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public Domain, via USFWS National Digital Library

Puerto Rican nightjars are among the American wildlife that Earth Month 2019 advances and that attract attention as among avian icons for Earth Day April 22, 2019, and Puerto Rico Five-One statehood.

Earth Day April 22 betokens well for the Caprimulgidae (from Latin caprimulgus, "goat-milker" and Latin-transliterated Greek -ειδής, "-like") family member of soil and tree food webs. Puerto Rican nightjars and Chuck-will's-widow (Antrostomus carolinensis), nighthawks (Chordeiles acutipennis, Chordeiles minor), pauraques (Nyctidromus albicollis), poorwills (Phalaenoptilus nuttallii) and whip-poor-wills (Antrostomus vociferus) correlate with healthy ecosystems. Nesting season drives them downward to dwell amid cast-off pine needles, atop dead leaves and on field, forest and woodland floors, rocky grounds and sandy beaches.

Puerto Rican nightjars and their mainland United States relatives engage in accidental pollination of woody plant flowers, spread of woody plant seeds and turnover of topsoil.

The timespan from Feb. 24 through July 1, especially from April through June, furnish the three- to 15-year life cycles of nightjar family members with breeding months.

Physically and sexually mature female Puerto Rican nightjars gestate one two-egg seasonal brood, or two, for ground-laying at one-day intervals, generally near low-lying bushes and thickets. Blotched, camouflageable, cryptic-colored, elliptical to subelliptical, flecked, freckled, mottled, semi-glossy, smooth, speckled, spotted 1.02- by 0.79-inch (26- by 20-millimeter) eggs hatch within 18 to 21 days. The buff, cream-white, pink, pink-buff, pink-white, white clutch with brown, gray, olive-brown, purple, red-brown markings, is invisible amid brown, gray, gray-brown, green, off-white, purple-gray ground colors.

Downy, open-eyed, semi-precocial (from Latin praecox, "ripe before its time") newborn Puerto Rican nightjars juggle gray bills; brown feet and legs; and undersides paler than upper-sides.

Puerto Rican nightjar nestlings know how to accept regurgitated food from parental bills, hop within two to three days and fly within 17 to 23 days.

Puerto Rican nightjar nestlings live independently as 30-day-olds after losing long, soft down to black-brown, buff-gray feathers as 10- to 20-day-olds and locating prey as 25-day-olds. Physically and sexually mature Puerto Rican nightjars manage banking, bobbing, circling, erratic, 50- to 150-foot- (15.24- to 45.72-meter-) high, flapping, gliding, low, moth-like, slow, dusk-to-dawn flights. Puerto Rican nightjars, named Antrostomus noctitherus (from Greek άντρον, "cave"; στόμα, "mouth"; νύξ, "night"; and θηράω, "hunter"), net ant, beetle, fly, mayfly, mosquito and moth prey.

Puerto Rican nightjars, observed by Frank Wetmore (June 18, 1886-Dec. 7, 1978), operate as Earth Month 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One icons of organic pest control.

Puerto Rican nightjars present 1.19- to 1.45-ounce (33.8- to 41-gram), 8.27- to 9.06-inch (21- to 23-centimeter) head-body-tail lengths and 5.08- to 5.35-inch (128.9- to 135.8-millimeter) wingspans.

Big, black eyes; big, bristled, gaping mouths; black-gray, diminutive bills, feet and legs; pale-banded throats; and pale-banded outer-wing feathers qualify as mature Puerto Rican nightjar hallmarks. Puerto Rican nightjars realize clucks and hisses against ants (Solenopsis), mongooses (Herpestes), monkeys (Erythrocebus, Macaca), owls (Asio) and thrashers (Margarops) and 15-note gaw-quert-whip-whip-whip whistles among themselves. They shelter in big-leaf mahogany (Swietenia), birdcatcher (Pisonia), Caribbean princewood (Exostema), gumbo-limbo (Bursera) and oxhorn (Bucida) host trees at 246.06- to 754.59-foot (75- to 230-meter) altitudes.

Puerto Rican nightjars, guabairos del suroeste borincano (Land of Brave People's southwesterly night owls), tender Earth Month 2019 and Puerto Rico Five-One statehood mosquito-free, night-time choruses.

Two Puerto Rican nightjars (Antrostomus noctitherus) sit longitudinally (not transversely across) on tree branch; Caribbean Islands National Wildlife Refuge complex; Saturday, March 21, 2009: Mike Morel/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public Domain, via USFWS National Digital Library

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Puerto Rican nightjar (Antrostomus noctitherus) parent with chick; Caribbean Islands National Wildlife Refuge complex; Friday, Aug. 6, 2010: Mike Morel/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public Domain, via USFWS National Digital Library @ https://digitalmedia.fws.gov/digital/collection/natdiglib/id/11091/rec/1

Two Puerto Rican nightjars (Antrostomus noctitherus) sit longitudinally (not transversely across) on tree branch; Caribbean Islands National Wildlife Refuge complex; Saturday, March 21, 2009: Mike Morel/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public Domain, via USFWS National Digital Library @ https://digitalmedia.fws.gov/digital/collection/natdiglib/id/11087/rec/5

Puerto Rican nightjar (Antrostomus noctitherus) parent with two snuggling chicks; Caribbean Islands National Wildlife Refuge complex; Aug. 6, 2010: Mike Morel/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Puerto-Rican-nightjar-with-chicks-8-Mike-Morel_FWS.jpg

For further information:

Baicich, Paul J.; and Colin J.O. Harrison. 2005. Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds. Second edition. Princeton NJ; and Oxford, England, UK: Princeton University Press, Princeton Field Guides.

BirdLife International 2016. "Antrostomus noctitherus." The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T22689809A9328623. http://dx.doi.org/10..2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22689809A93248623.en.
Available @ https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22689809/93248623

Bouglouan, Nicole. "Puerto Rican Nightjar Antrostomus noctitherus." Oiseaux-Birds > Cards (Bird's Information).
Available @ http://www.oiseaux-birds.com/card-puerto-rican-nightjar.html

Caribbean Ecological Services Field Office. "Puerto Rican Nightjar Caprimulus noctitherus." U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service > Southeast Region > Fact-sheet.
Available @ https://www.fws.gov/southeast/pdf/fact-sheet/puerto-rican-nightjar-english.pdf

Holyoak, David T. "Caprimulgiformes (Nightjars)." In: Michael Hutchins, Jerome A. Jackson, Walter J. Bock and Donna Olendorf, editors. Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia. Second edition. Volume 9, Birds II: 367-371. Farmington Hills MI: Gale Group, 2002.

Marriner, Derdriu. 14 April 2019. "Puerto Rican Screech-Owls Earth Month 2019, Puerto Rico Five-One Icons." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/04/puerto-rican-screech-owls-earth-month.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 7 April 2019. "Earth Month, Puerto Rican Green Mango Hummingbirds and Sea Hibiscus." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/04/earth-month-puerto-rican-green-mango.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 31 March 2019. "Puerto Rican Emerald Hummingbirds and Puerto Rican Statehood." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/03/puerto-rican-emerald-hummingbirds-and.html

Vilella, Francisco J. 2010. "Puerto Rican Nightjar Antrostromus noctitherus." Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Ithaca NY: Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Available @ https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/species/purnig1/overview

Vilella, Francisco J. 2008. "Nest Habitat Use of the Puerto Rican Nightjar Caprimulgus noctitherus in Guánica Biosphere Reserve." Bird Conservation International, vol. 18:307-317.
Available @ https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0959270908007594

Vilella, Francisco J. 1995. "Reproductive Ecology and Behaviour of the Puerto Rican Nightjar Caprimulgus noctitherus." Bird Conservation International, vol. 5: 349-366.
Available @ https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S095927090000109X

Vuilleumier, François, editor-in-chief; and Paul Sweet, consultant. 2016. American Museum of Natural History Birds of North America. Revised edition. New York NY: DK Publishing.

Wetmore, Alexander. 31 December 1919. "Description of a Whippoorwill From Porto Rico." Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, vol. 32: 235-238.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3335191

Puerto Rican nightjar (Antrostomus noctitherus) parent with two snuggling chicks; Caribbean Islands National Wildlife Refuge complex; Aug. 6, 2010: Mike Morel/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons