Goatsucker with young
Category: Birds | Date: May 08 2008 | By: tumaren
Goatsucker is a traditional name given to birds in the order Caprimulgiformes - the nightjars. The term was based on a belief that the birds drank the milk of goats. Fortunately for the local masai this belief was long ago proven erroneous. Nightjars are insectivores predominantly nocturnal and closely related to owls.
The other day i ran into the following Slender-tailed Nightjar while walking. It had two young with it which remained so difficult to see it took several minutes to see them after the mother flushed.
here is the adult:
and here is the hidden chick:
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Tumaren -
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3 Responses to “Goatsucker with young”
sheryl, washington dc, on 08 May 2008
You mean the El Chupacabra from “The X-Files” is real?
It’s much prettier than the fictious goatsucker.
s.
James, on 08 May 2008
i’m not so familiar with the El chupacabra but glad ours is more sitely.
Jim, on 13 Jul 2008
Thank you for explaining “goat sucker”. I studied “gap and suck” feeling for my PhD thesis and while I only studied the aquatic forms of feeding behavior I knew baleen whales and ‘goat sucker’ both use their oral cavities to scoop up algae and insects respectively. Have you seen these birds feeding?
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