 Love the Trail and want to help keep it a fantastic resource? Join Trail Scouts! This FWC volunteer program is a fun, easy way for anyone visiting GFBWT locations to share valuable feedback on birding, wildlife viewing, site conditions and infrastructure. By completing a simple online survey during your visit, you’ll provide essential insights that help GFBWT staff maintain the Trail and promote conservation.
To learn more, contact GFBT@MyFWC.com and include “Trail Scouts” in the email subject line.
 Common Nighthawk. Photo by FWC.
Nightjars are some of the most enigmatic birds in North America. Very little is known about the basic aspects of their biology, habitat use and population status. Kite Tales staff spoke with Madison Cole, Avian Conservation Biologist at FWC, to learn how biologists and volunteers are working to understand and conserve them.
Tell us a bit about nightjars.
In Florida we have four species of nightjar: the Common Nighthawk, the Eastern Whip-poor-will, Chuck-will's-widow, and in South Florida the Antillean Nighthawk. Nightjars are generally most active during the night or evening, and all four Florida species are nocturnal. Their behavior is strongly influenced by moonlight. Activities such as calling and foraging increase under bright moonlight and the lunar cycle may determine their breeding times.
In recent years conservationists have observed declines in Nightjar populations. Possible reasons could be habitat loss and pesticide use, since insects are their main food source. All the nightjar species in Florida have been identified as Species of Greatest Conservation Need, which means it’s very important to track and monitor them to ensure that their populations are secure.
The FWC is partnering with the Nightjar Survey Network to conduct research that can be used to inform nightjar conservation. Tell us about the project.
The FWC received a request from the Atlantic Flyway Council, a collaborative effort between states along the Atlantic Coast doing large scale conservation work. They were interested in identifying where we can support a group called the Nightjar Survey Network, which is part of the Center for Conservation Biology. The Network uses standardized data collected by volunteers to gain a better understanding of nightjar population status and trends nationwide.
Their protocol was very easy to adopt through the FWC’s volunteer program. The Atlantic Flyway Council provided a set of survey routes and points, 14 for the Panhandle and 25 for the peninsula. Then we matched volunteers to those routes. There’s one volunteer per route, but a volunteer can take more than one route to reduce data gaps and increase area coverage. Surveys are done once a year based on the spring lunar cycle. They happen on bright, moonlit nights, in a two-week window each month from March through May in Florida. We're doing driving surveys for 10-mile routes, and you stop every mile, get out of your car and take roadside counts of nightjars seen or heard over a six-minute period. Volunteers who aren’t familiar with the call of different nightjars use the Merlin app (by Cornell Lab of Ornithology) to facilitate their surveys and can reach out to the avian coordination group or the volunteer program biologist with questions or to resolve possible misidentifications.
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Map showing Nightjar survey locations in Florida.
What's really exciting about the project is that it's very collaborative and we're going to see a lot of new data on nightjars in Florida. This is something we haven’t had before. Now we're getting a good inventory of how nightjars are doing across the state, which can help chart the course for conservation and habitat management.
How long will the surveys be conducted?
2024 is the pilot year of the study. We're looking at surveying each route for two years. If there are no birds observed during those two years, that route will have a gap year before being assessed again. If no birds are observed, the route will be discontinued. If birds are observed on a route, it will be surveyed for five years before being reassessed. We really need monitoring data to understand where we are seeing these birds, and whether they are present in urban areas as well as more natural areas. This information can teach us more about Florida’s role in providing nightjar habitat and supporting nightjar breeding activity.
Is there anything that you want the public to know about nightjar research and conservation?
It’s a great opportunity for folks who want to be engaged in a conservation initiative and to learn about these birds you might never have known were in your area. It’s also very accessible since it’s a driving survey, and there’s a lot of flexibility for volunteers. This effort really shows the importance of volunteers in science. There are a lot of mysteries remaining in nightjar conservation at a large scale, but the restrictions in survey conditions make survey efforts difficult. This year, volunteers were able to complete 13 routes that staff would not have had the capacity to complete!
To learn more, contact the FWC volunteer program at Volunteer@MyFWC.com and include “Nightjars” in the email subject line.
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