This engraving shows all three of the Northeast’s nightjar species: the common nighthawk (figures 1 and 2), eastern whip-poor-will (3 and 4), and Chuck-will’s-widow (5). Explore audio files of the birds’ calls below, provided courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library, the world’s largest online archive of natural sound audio and video recordings.
Published in 1835 by Thomas Brown, this image combines several illustrations by Alexander Wilson, a Scottish-born illustrator who published the first ornithology of American birds, produced in nine volumes between 1807 and 1814. Wilson’s short and turbulent life included numerous romantic debacles, failed schemes, and arrests (once, for satirical poetry, another, not far from the Northern Woodlands office, on suspicion of being a Canadian spy). He was a close friend of Merriweather Lewis, and is the eponym for Wilson’s warbler and the Wilson Ornithological Society.
Eastern whip-poor-will.
Eastern whip-poor-will.
Chuck-will's-widow.