If you've ever spent a humid June night in the rural South or the woods of New England, you know that sound. It isn't a melody. Not really. It’s more of an obsession. A relentless, rhythmic hammering of three notes that can go on for hours. Honestly, the song of the whippoorwill is less of a bird call and more of a ghost story set to music. It’s the kind of sound that makes you pull the blankets a little higher, even when the thermometer says it’s eighty degrees.
Scientists call it Antrostomus vociferus.
That’s a mouthful. Most of us just call them "goatsuckers," thanks to an old, weirdly persistent myth that they used to fly into barns at night to suck milk from livestock. They don't, obviously. They eat moths. Huge amounts of them. But the name stuck because these birds are weird. They aren't like the songbirds you see at your feeder. They’re cryptic, mottled brown lumps that vanish into leaf litter the moment they land. You’ll probably never see one. But you’ll hear them.
The Physics of a Midnight Marathon
Why is it so loud? That’s the thing people always ask. A single male whippoorwill can repeat his name—whip-poor-will—over a thousand times without stopping. I'm not exaggerating. Researchers have actually sat out there with clickers and recorded individuals going for 1,000, 1,500, even 2,000 consecutive calls.
It’s an endurance test.
Basically, the male is telling every other bird in the woods that he has the lung capacity of an elite athlete and the territory to back it up. The sound itself is produced in the syrinx, like other birds, but the whippoorwill has a massive mouth—literally an enormous gaping maw surrounded by "rictal bristles" that look like whiskers. This huge mouth acts like a resonator. When they open up to sing, they aren't just chirping. They are projecting.
There’s a specific cadence to it. The first note is sharp. The middle is lower. The final "will" has a rising, whip-like snap to it. If you’re standing close enough—which is rare—you can actually hear a small "chuck" sound right before the main call begins. It’s like the bird is winding up a spring.
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Moonlight as a Biological Trigger
Whippoorwills are synchronized with the lunar cycle. This isn't some New Age theory; it’s hard biology. They are most active when the moon is at least half-full. Why? Because they are visual hunters. They sit on the ground or on a low branch and look up. They need the moonlight to silhouette large moths and beetles against the sky.
If the moon is bright, they hunt more. If they hunt more, they have more energy. If they have more energy, they sing more. During a full moon, the song of the whippoorwill can become a literal wall of sound that lasts from dusk until dawn. It’s a feedback loop of light and noise.
Folklore, Death, and the American Gothic
You can't talk about this bird without getting into the spooky stuff. It’s baked into the culture. In many Native American traditions, particularly among the Haudenosaunee and Mohegan, the whippoorwill was seen as a soul-catcher. The legend went that the bird could sense when a person was about to die and would wait nearby to catch their soul as it departed.
If the bird stayed silent, you were fine. If it started singing? Well, maybe call the doctor.
H.P. Lovecraft leaned hard into this in The Dunwich Horror. He depicted them as psychopomps, eerie creatures that timed their cries to the failing breaths of the dying. It’s a trope that shows up in Robert Frost’s poetry and Washington Irving’s stories too. There is something inherently "unsettling" about a voice that speaks your language—or seems to—from the pitch-black woods where you can't see a foot in front of your face.
It’s "Gothic" in the truest sense. It’s the sound of the wilderness refusing to be quiet while the "civilized" world tries to sleep.
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The Quiet Decline: Why the Woods are Going Silent
Here is the part that sucks. We’re losing them. If you feel like you haven't heard the song of the whippoorwill in a few years, you probably aren't imagining it. According to the North American Breeding Bird Survey, whippoorwill populations plummeted by over 60% between 1966 and 2015. In some parts of the Northeast, they’ve vanished entirely.
It isn't just one thing. It’s a "death by a thousand cuts" scenario.
- Habitat loss: They need "edge" habitats—think open woodlands with plenty of leaf litter. We tend to either clear-cut forests for suburbs or let them grow into dense, closed-canopy woods. Neither works for the whippoorwill.
- The Insect Apocalypse: They eat big moths. Luna moths, Cecropia moths, Sphinx moths. Thanks to pesticides and habitat loss, these giant insects are becoming rarer. No moths, no birds.
- Light Pollution: Remember the moon thing? Artificial lights from parking lots and streetlights mess with their internal clocks. It makes them vulnerable to predators or confuses their hunting patterns.
- Ground Predators: Since they nest directly on the ground—no nest, just two eggs on the leaves—they are sitting ducks for outdoor cats, raccoons, and opossums.
How to Actually Hear One
If you want to experience the song of the whippoorwill before it becomes a thing of the past, you have to be intentional. You can't just open your window in a suburb and hope for the best.
First, timing is everything. You want a night with a bright moon, preferably in late May or June. That’s peak breeding season. Second, location matters. Look for "pine barrens" or managed forests where there’s a lot of clear-understory space. State parks with sandy soil and oak-pine mixes are gold mines.
When you get there, don't use a flashlight. Just sit. Let your eyes adjust. Wait for twenty minutes after sunset. The first one usually starts just as the "blue hour" fades into true black. It starts with one tentative call. Then another. Then, if you're lucky, the whole forest erupts.
It is loud. It is repetitive. It is, frankly, kind of annoying if you’re trying to sleep in a tent. But it’s also one of the last truly wild sounds left in the eastern United States.
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Modern Conservation Efforts
The good news is that people are starting to pay attention. In states like Massachusetts and New Hampshire, conservationists are using controlled burns to create the kind of open-woodland habitat these birds crave. It turns out that a little bit of fire is actually great for them. It clears out the thick brush and allows the "nightjars" (the family whippoorwills belong to) to hunt effectively again.
Birdwatchers are also using "Motus" towers—automated radio telemetry—to track where these birds go when they leave us for the winter. They head down to Mexico and Central America. Protecting them here doesn't mean much if their winter homes are being razed for cattle ranching. It’s a global puzzle.
Making Your Property Whippoorwill-Friendly
You don't need a thousand acres to help. If you live in a semi-rural area, the way you manage your land can actually make a difference for the song of the whippoorwill and its cousins.
- Stop "cleaning" your woods. If you have a wooded back lot, leave the leaves. Whippoorwills need that leaf litter for camouflage and nesting. When you rake it all up and put down mulch, you're destroying their home.
- Turn off the lights. Seriously. Motion-sensor lights are fine, but constant outdoor floodlights are a disaster for nocturnal wildlife. Use yellow bulbs or "dark sky" compliant fixtures that point the light down, not up.
- Keep the cat inside. This is the big one. Ground-nesting birds have zero defense against a house cat. If you want to hear the birds, the cat stays on the porch.
- Plant for moths. Plant native oaks, cherries, and birches. These are the host plants for the giant moths that whippoorwills need to survive. Think of it as growing bird food.
The song of the whippoorwill is a link to a version of America that is rapidly disappearing. It’s a sound that our great-grandparents knew by heart, a sound that defined the summer nights of the 19th century. Losing it isn't just a biological loss; it’s a cultural one. It’s the loss of the "wild" in our own backyards.
So, next time you’re out late and you hear that frantic, triple-beat whistling coming from the treeline, don't just complain about the noise. Stop and listen. It’s a rare performance by a bird that’s survived for millions of years, fighting for a spot in a world that’s getting louder and brighter every day.
To get started with local conservation, check the Audubon Society’s climate watch reports or use the eBird app to log sightings in your area. This data helps scientists identify "hotspots" that need immediate protection. You can also contact your local land trust to see if they have active "young forest" initiatives, which are the primary habitats these birds need to thrive. Taking these small steps ensures that the midnight woods don't go completely silent for the next generation.