Bird post #1----The eastern whip-poor-will (Antrostomus vociferus), Master Camouflage, 1989

Good Morning CW Members----1:30 AM)2016-7-3
I want to share with you something happen to me and my passion of Bird watching, first I have to say that I watching birds since a very young age, for sure at the age of 7, you don't having any experiance, this come with the time, so I develop my passion since I got my first job at 16 and start to get equipments, Bushnell Binocular, telescope, Gibson Microphone and Pentax Camera, it's not take long when you part of Ornithology groups, you gain some reputation, even today I regularly receive email from friend in Quebec and Ontario for some information on possible observation.
So in 1988 some rumors extends as The Canadian Wildlife looking for Birds Watchers to collected data on site all over some regions where no others data and have being collected before, blank canvas, challenge I like that, all this to make possible the publication of"The breeding birds of Quebec".
So i make sure to be part of it, because I love Bird Watching, I start my research to know who is in charge and what to do to be hiring, finally i meet one of the coordinator "Mr. Yves Aubry", sure he say everything possible and for sure I hear you name more then often, but some exam, Video and song will be pass to the participants, because what we need here are the best, i know exactly what he mean by that, because most of the time you just see birds in a flash and the vocalist are very present early morning and at dawn in the forest, those songs are the finger print of the birds species, if you don't know your birds songs, you could't be good for collecting data.

So long story short, on 239 participants on 63 past all test, 75% require to be part of it, well well, Myself I past with 94%, so I not be only part of it, but in charge, granted teem group leader.
Summer 89 we start to preparing the trip for a duration of 3 months, we have all the equipment possible for not died in service(LOL), VTT, Sierra Pick-up truck with double gas tank, tent, food, everything you could imagine to have a safe trip in the wild.

I was bless to be choose, this experiance was something i will always remember and have plenty of photo taken during this period of time, and for sure more to be posted.

In addition to loving this so much, 2 of my own picture are inside that book, this is just the coronation of all those year devoted to birds watching and protecting them.

Picture #1---- you can see on the left "Mr Yves Aubry" one of the coordinator of the project, and the man of the right, I let you guess who it is, Hummm.

Picture #2----This is one of my picture choose to be in this book" The eastern whip-poor-will " master of camouflage, I have to admit, other them if you almost walk on it, this bird will never reveal is position(an Hard one)
For this demonstration on how this bird have a so nice coloration for camouflage, I Crop the bird only on picture 3, have a closer look, and go back on picture #3 to admire this miracle of nature.

Thanks for Viewing.
Alan

---------------------------The first atlas (1984-1989)-------------------------------

Breeding bird atlases were started in Europe, and the first, which treated the birds of Britain and Ireland, was published in 1976. The first North American atlas for an entire state or province was The Atlas of Breeding Birds of Vermont, published in 1985. This was closely followed by The Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Ontario, published in 1987. The first Québec Breeding Bird Atlas was published 1995 (French version). The English version, The Breeding Birds of Québec: Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Southern Québec, appeared a year later.

This atlas, which was edited by Jean Gauthier and Yves Aubry, is a major reference work for those interested in the birds of Québec. Weighing in at 6 kg, this 1295-page volume was the result of six years of fieldwork (1984-1989) and includes 1400 photographs and 5000 references.

--------------------------The eastern whip-poor-will-------------------------------

Eastern whip-poor-wills breed in deciduous or mixed woods across central and southeastern Canada and the eastern United States, and migrate to the southeastern United States and to eastern Mexico and Central America for the winter. These birds forage at night, catching insects in flight, and normally sleep during the day. Eastern whip-poor-wills nest on the ground, in shaded locations among dead leaves, and usually lay two eggs at a time. The bird will commonly remain on the nest unless almost stepped upon

The eastern whip-poor-will is becoming locally rare. Several reasons for the decline are proposed, such as habitat destruction, predation by feral cats and dogs, and poisoning by insecticides, but the actual causes remain elusive.Even with local populations endangered, the species as a whole is not considered globally threatened due to its large range.

The whip-poor-will has been split into two species. Eastern populations are now referred to as the eastern whip-poor-will. The disjunct population in southwestern United States and Mexico is now referred to as the Mexican whip-poor-will, Antrostomus arizonae. The two populations were split based on range, different vocalizations, different egg coloration, and DNA sequencing showing differentiation.

----------------------------------Cultural references--------------------------------

Due to its haunting, ethereal song, the eastern whip-poor-will is the topic of numerous legends. One New England legend says the whip-poor-will can sense a soul departing, and can capture it as it flees. This is used as a plot device in H. P. Lovecraft's story The Dunwich Horror. Lovecraft based this idea on information of local legends given to him by Edith Miniter of North Wilbraham, Massachusetts when he visited her in 1928. This is likely related to an earlier Native American and general American folk belief that the singing of the birds is a death omen. This is also referred by Whip-poor-will, a short story by James Thurber, in which the constant nighttime singing of a whip-poor-will results in maddening insomnia of the protagonist Mr Kinstrey who eventually loses his mind and kills everyone in his house, including himself. The bird also features, however, in The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point, a poem by the English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in which the outcast speaker asks: "Could the whip-poor-will or the cat of the glen/Look into my eyes and be bold?"

It is also frequently used as an auditory symbol of rural America, as in Washington Irving's story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, or as a plot device. For example, William Faulkner's short story, "Barn Burning", makes several mentions of whip-poor-wills, e.g.: "and then he found that he had been asleep because he knew it was almost dawn, the night almost over. He could tell that from the whip-poor-wills. They were everywhere now among the dark trees below him, constant and inflectioned and ceaseless, so that, as the instant for giving over to the day birds drew nearer and nearer, there was no interval at all between them."

"The Mountain Whippoorwill" is a poem written by Stephen Vincent Benet about a fiddling contest, won by Hillbilly Jim, who refers to his fiddle as a whip-poor-will and identifies the bird with the lonely and poor but vibrant life of the mountain people. American poet Robert Frost described the sound of a whip-poor-will in the fourth stanza of his 1915 poem "Ghost House". This is notable in Frost's use of assonance, in "The whippoorwill is coming to shout / And hush and cluck and flutter about."

In the 1934 Frank Capra film It Happened One Night, before Clark Gable's character Peter Warne reveals his name to Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert), he famously says to her: "I am the whip-poor-will that cries in the night".

The standard tune "My Blue Heaven", written in 1924 by Walter Donaldson and George A. Whiting, and popularized by a 1928 Gene Austin recording, opens with the words, "When whip-poor-wills call, and evening is nigh, I hurry to my blue heaven."

Hank Williams's 1949 song "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" opens with the lyric, "Hear that lonesome whip-poor-will/He sounds too blue to fly." The swing classic "The Birth of the Blues" contains the line "From a whippoorwill high on a hill they took a new note / pushed it through a horn 'til it was worn into a blue note". The whippoorwill is also referenced in Hank Williams Jr's song "I'm Gonna Get Drunk and Play Hank Williams All Night Long" with the lyrics "Cause the wedding bells will never ring for me/And that whippoorwill ain't got no sympathy". Jim Croce too makes a reference to this bird in his song "I got a name": "Like the whip-poor-will and the baby's cry, I've got a song, I've got a song".

Elton John and Bernie Taupin's 1975 song "Philadelphia Freedom" features a flute mimicking the call of the eastern whip-poor-will and includes the lyrics "I like living easy without family ties, till the whippoorwill of freedom zapped me right between the eyes."

Stephen Sondheim's comedic song "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid", from the 1962 Broadway musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, includes being "winsome as a whippoorwill" in a list of qualities that should be found in a maid.

The popular tune "That Sunday, That Summer", written by Joe Sherman and George David Weiss, and most famously recorded by Nat King Cole in 1963, opens with the words, "If I had to choose just one day to last my whole life through/It would surely be that Sunday; the day that I met you/Newborn whippoorwills were calling from the hills/Summer was a-coming in but fast…"

"Whippoorwill" is a song from Annuals 2013 album "Time Stamp". It makes a mention of the bird with the lines "A cold dead night, after a windswept day the fire burns high. But I’m just listening to the whippoorwills cry. Oh how it carries so fine. I’ll bet it floats miles straight through your window."

Southern rock band Blackberry Smoke released an album in 2012 named "The Whippoorwill".

Courtesy of : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_whip-poor-will