Goatsucker! Elings Park Poorwills Provide Plenty of Excitement Right Here in Santa Barbara 

I became a birder at the age of 12. I rarely had anyone to take me far afield in those early days, so I’d go by Shanks’s pony (a British idiom meaning to walk!) to the places that were close at hand: the Happy Valley and Bramhall Park. Both these locations, in northern England, had the Ladybrook as an artery of life coursing through them. I soon knew to look in the holly trees to find roosting tawny owls, and I knew where I could flush the woodcock from its resting place in a damp spot on the trespassing side of a barbed-wire fence — I never did see one upon the ground. I knew the little copse where the lesser-spotted woodpeckers nested, and the bend in the Ladybrook where the kingfisher sat on a stick above the water. I knew when the willow warblers and chiffchaffs were due to arrive from Africa, and it gave me a thrill to hear their songs again. Old friends returned.

Soon enough, I found a network of birders who took me away from my local patches to see different birds that seemed exotic to me, but I always had the Ladybrook to fall back on.

Fast-forward 50 years, and I’m returning to my habits of old. I determined many years ago that I would mostly restrict my birding pursuits to my home county. I know plenty of birders who drop everything to chase a rare bird at the far ends of the state and beyond. As a youth, I did my fair share of chasing, but now it seems counterproductive to me. Burning fuel to accelerate climate change is only hastening the demise of wildlife; but there’s a new trend in birding that I welcome. Some birders, rather than focus on a state or county list, look for birds within five miles of their home, and many walk or ride bikes in their pursuit.

I’m fortunate to live within a mile of Elings Park. Some mornings I walk there, and some I drive — the hills are a bit steep for cycling. I invariably go to the south side of the park, where the habitat looks unprepossessing. At this time of year, there’s a lot of bare earth and dried grasses, but it greens up quickly after the first decent rain. A recently added feature is the acre that has been set aside for plant restoration, and that has attracted birds that usually wouldn’t stick around.

If I can, I get to the park before the dogs arrive with their humans. Racing dogs scatter birds far and wide. There have been some surprising birds this fall. A green-tailed towhee, a bird of high mountain meadows and sagebrush, stuck around for three days. Another desert bird, a sage thrasher, stayed for longer. A rare Lucy’s warbler and a Tennessee warbler graced the fennel patches for a day or two. There are usually a few horned larks at the park in the fall, but this year has been exceptional, with flocks of nearly 75 birds being seen. Unfortunately, the larks are quite skittish, and as soon as the dogs and bikes start making the rounds of the trails, they are off to quieter places. One day, the larks were joined by a chestnut-collared longspur, a ground dweller that nests in the dry prairies and winters well to the south of us. Many came to look for the bird, but few saw it.

One of the highlights of the fall up at the park was coming face to face with a burrowing owl. Another day as I was walking along, I flushed a brown, cryptically colored bird, and for a moment I thought it was the owl again — then I noted the small size, the fluttery flight, and the narrow wings. It came down to the ground only 30 yards away at the base of a bush, and I was able to creep up without again putting it to flight. It proved to be a common poorwill, a nocturnal bird, much like an owl in coloration, but with very different feeding habits.

The poorwill, along with the nighthawks and the European nightjars, belong to the family Caprimulgidae, and they are all somewhat similar in appearance. The members of the family are referred to as “goatsuckers,” based on a superstition that goes back 2,000 years or more. As you can see in the photo, the beak is quite small, but these birds have enormous gapes; they are like the whale sharks of the bird world. They use their huge mouths to catch flying insects. All nocturnal creatures are mysterious, and people came up with folklore to explain their strange appearance. In the 300s BCE, Aristotle wrote about the harm that these birds could do to goats, and in 77 AD, Pliny the Elder wrote: “The Caprimulgi (so called of milking goats) are like the bigger kind of Owsels [Thrush]. They bee night-theeves; for all the day long they see not. Their manner is to come into the sheepeheards coats and goat-pens, and to the goats udders presently they goe, and suck the milke at their teats. And looke what udder is so milked, it giveth no more milke, but misliketh and falleth away afterwards, and the goats become blind withall” (C. Plinius Secundus. The Historie of the World. Book X. Translated by Philemon Holland, 1601).

Our common poorwill, which I’m sure has never tormented a goat, is largely a bird of the deserts, but they do breed quite widely in our county. The name is derived from the call, a far-carrying poor-willip, that can be heard on warm spring and summer nights. The status of the birds in winter, however, is little known because of an amazing adaptation. Poorwills are capable of going into a torpor to survive cold nights when there are no insects flying. Scientists have discovered that they can lower their body temperature to 41 degrees Fahrenheit and reduce their oxygen consumption by more than 90 percent.

The Elings Park poorwill stuck around for a couple of days and was even heard calling on the first night of its stay. Where it is now is anyone’s guess; it could even still be in the park, but good luck with finding it! There are many benefits to regularly visiting your local patch: You get to witness the seasonal comings and goings of various species, to know the resident birds and learn from their behavior, and there is always a chance you will come across an unusual visitor.

Hugh Ranson is a member of Santa Barbara Audubon Society, a nonprofit organization that protects area birdlife and habitat and connects people with birds through education, conservation, and science. For more information, see SantaBarbaraAudubon.org.