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Wednesday, April 12, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
An unexpected
encounter
The last thing the staff and
customers of Lowe’s in Bend
expected to see last week
was a lone common poorwill
(a bird very closely related to
a nighthawk) standing in the
middle of the garden center.
You have to admit, that
bundle of feathers with red
eyes just doesn’t fit into a
bird category unless some-
one knows a little more
about birds than “robins eat
worms.”
One of Lowe’s employ-
ees picked it up and thought
it was a baby owl. But a
customer just happened to
see the bird and knew it for
what it is. She also knew if
it was being carried around
without putting up a struggle
something was wrong with it
and also knew who to call for
help: Elise Wolf of Native
Bird Care in Sisters.
Currently, the poorwill
is undergoing an intense
bathing regime in an effort
to remove some kind of
gunk the bird got into while
it was exploring Lowe’s gar-
den department. The usual
method for removing oils is
using Dawn detergent. But
the stuff on the Lowe’s bird
is persistent and sticky, so
Elise has to work harder in
an attempt to remove it.
The bird is also devour-
ing hundreds of mealworms
and crickets daily, which
set Elise and her husband,
Whitney, back $40 plus ship-
ping for just mealworms.
Poorwills are medium-
sized nocturnal or crepuscu-
lar (the latter a time of sparse
light between sunset and
darkness and darkness and
dawn), and they are equipped
with long wings, short, weak
legs, very short bills and a
BIG mouth.
In some areas they’re
called goatsuckers, due
to ancient folk tales that
claimed they sucked milk
from goats. Goatsuckers of
the New World (our western
species) are called night-
hawks, others poorwills, and
they nest on the ground.
In this neck of the woods
you have to be careful when
driving little-used roads at
night as both poorwills and
nighthawks stop to rest in
the middle of the roads. Both
give off a very distinct eye-
shine at night, manifested
by just two tiny red spots in
the darkness. If you see that
at night in the road, get your
foot off the gas pedal and on
the brake; it will probably be
a goatsucker.
Nightjars have small feet,
of little use for walking, and
to perch on a limb they must
do so lengthways — which
also makes them look like
a stick, and their soft plum-
age is cryptically colored to
resemble bark, leaves, and
sand and gravel.
Now, here comes the real
mystery about nightjars,
especially poorwills: They
(and hummingbirds) are the
only birds known to go into
a torpor, defined as a state
of decreased physiological
activity in an animal, usu-
ally caused by reduced body
temperature and metabolic
rate, very similar to hiberna-
tion. While hummingbirds
can go into torpor for up to
12 hours, common poorwills
can do it all through the win-
ter — as in hibernation.
Which opens the door to
the possibility that the poor-
will now in Elise’s care may
have flown into Lowe’s late
last summer and has been
there hibernating through
winter. Or, perhaps a bet-
ter scenario, it was passing
through the night before and
thought Lowe’s looked like a
good motel for a day’s rest.
You call it.
Elise plans to release
Quality Truck-mounted
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PHOTO BY JIM ANDERSON
Yep, it’s a bird — honest! Look at its eyes. It’s an adtlt common poorwill
on the mend at Elise Wolf’s Native Bird Care facility in Sisters.
“Sticky” as soon as the
night-moving moths and
insects are abundant, and
since poorwills fly very close
to the ground and often rest
at night in the middle of the
road…
Well, you know.
HOWELLS
REALTY GROUP
Phil Arends
541-420-9997
phil@blackbutte.com
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isters and Cook