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For those of you who have read most of my articles, you are aware that I am a devout animal lover, and have been since birth. I grew up on a farm amidst all types of them, both wild and domesticated. I was friends to many guys who were hunters and I fell in with them for a while, but I cringed every time I shortened the life of anything, other than those who were dangerous or destructive. I stopped hunting before I became full grown. Our story today comes from some of the most vivid of my memories as a small boy until I was grown and entered the military service.
Life on a small family farm was hard as I was growing up. We had to raise our own food and also other crops for money. The dusk of evening, during the warm and hot months, was the time we all looked forward to. The heat had subsided some and we were home from the field about that time also. Our mother would soon have supper on the table and we would soon have our bath and be able to go to bed for some very sweet rest. While we sat on the front porch as the dusk was closing in on us, the evening and nocturnal birds began to fly and call. There were many different ones which I found fascinating. There was the flitting of the bats in their search for insects. There was also a bird, not a mammal as the bat, but they were referred to back then as a "Bull Bat" which I later found was properly named a "nighthawk". This small bird flew high in the sky, back and forth with a tweeting sound but would occasionally stop his tweeting and head into what appeared to be a 100 or more feet dive and then pull out with his mouth wide open, making a deep "boooo" sound which resembles a bellow from a bull. Here is a quote taken from "The Outdoor Alabama" website:
The scientific name contains the genus Chordeiles, which is derived from two Greek words, chorde, meaning a stringed instrument and deile, meaning evening. This is believed to be in reference to the sound that the bird makes when it exhibits a death-defying dive from several hundred feet in the air, then abruptly flares its wings, and gracefully glides upward, just before striking the ground. The rush of air through the feathers creates a loud booming sound compared to the lowest note attainable on a stringed instrument.
These dives are for capturing insects which their magnificent vision alerts them to from high in the air. Amazing!
There were also owls, swifts, barn swallows, purple martins and a number of other insect consumers. But my fondest memories are from the calls of the lonely sounding whippoorwills and the mournful call of the Mourning Dove. The whippoorwill is a nocturnal bird and may be heard almost anytime during the night until dawn. For those who may not have had the opportunity of hearing one, I enclose two links to websites with their calls on them. Just look for the sound button and click on it. But I warn you, these sounds were captured very close to the birds and sound much shriller than they do from a distance. Also, these calls are rapid, more so than most of the evening calls that I remember.
The Mourning Dove is a beautiful creature with a very calm and patient disposition, harmless to other birds and consumes cracked corn, sunflower seeds and various other seeds. They are from the same family as pigeons but are smaller and less obnoxious. Our city is a "bird sanctuary and it is illegal to kill birds within the city limits, but I wage a constant battle with youngsters who own a pump-up BB gun. I feed those birds and they are very much unafraid, but these young whipper-snappers sneak around and shoot them when they catch one on a power line. I find a dead one every once in a while. Whenever i see one of those boys with his gun I remind him that it is against the law to kill the birds in town and that I will surely call the police. It helps a little but I fear one will draw down on me one day.
Many people who are unfamiliar with them, think that the doves are owls when they hear their cooing. So I have a couple of sound bites of their calls also. You will notice on both, at a point when you will hear squeaking noises...this is as they take flight and the noise comes from their feathers, so I am told, as they accelerate and ascend.
Feed and protect the birds...they love life as do we.
Author Biography: Joel Hendon was born September 20, 1930 near Gadsden Alabama. He attended public schools in Cherokee County, Alabama and after serving a tour of duty in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, attended Jacksonville State University, Jacksonville, Alabama majoring in Business Administration. He became a Christian in 1948, and although he followed secular work as a career and retired from Allied Signal Aerospace in 1997, he is an avid student of the Holy Bible and related works as well as biblical history. He formerly produced a bi-weekly ezine. Archives are accessible at: http://piedmontcoc.com/hofarchives.htmlHe is also the author of Final Stronghold, published in 2003, available from Amazon.
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Very nice article, Joel. I, too, love to sit on the front porch in the evening or early morning and listen to the birds and wild animals that roam the woods around our place. We have some of the most beautiful hummingbirds and finches and red and blue birds in the country. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for reading and commenting Sandra. We now live inside the city limits of a small town, but it is a quiet street in the very edge of town and i have, on occasion, heard a whippoorwill in the distance. We have a number of doves who visit for the handouts we leave for them. I hav not seen one of the "bull bats" since I was a teenager. I certainly hope they are not extinct
Joel, an unusually presented, refreshing and informative article! I like the photos and links a lot. Reading this, I think of my wonderful dad, who enjoyed birds, squirrels, and all kinds of insects.
Thanks Jane, for your nice comment. I sometimes wonder why I love animals so much. But I think it is because there is no pretense to them. They are what they are and live up to it completely. I have learned that very few, if shown affection, will not return it. One person said that man is the only rebelious creature that God created.
Thanks for reading and commenting Melanie. I agree, I love them all, but there is something about the whippoorwill that really does something for me. I was so thankful after we moved here to learn that one (or more) resided in some nearby woods and I could hear them some evenings. Not as often as I would like but still once in a while.
I am from Illionois and we used to have whippoorwhils. In fact we came accross one in the woods in her nest on the ground. Sadly we don't hear them anymore. We live in the country. I was wondering where you are located and if you still hear them.
Hi MS, thanks for reading and commenting on my article. We live in Piedmont, Alabama. I was raised about 7 miles out in the hills from here on a farm. Piedmont is only about 5,000 population and we live just inside the city limits with a good bit of woods nearby and we do sometimes hear a whippoorwill but not as often as when I was a kid. They are notorioius for keeping their distance from activity. I remember they always sounded like they are some distance away, but here they are enough distance that you can only hear them when everything is quiet. They sure do bring back memories.
We have doves all around us. In fact we have several that come eat under our bird feeders (they never try to eat from the feeders..I guess they are too big).
They are constantly cooing from the trees, calling their mates I suppose.
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