May 22, 2016
Big Sandy area, Benton County TN
On the night of May 22, our family participated in a survey of our
designated route for the Nightjar Survey Network(http://www.nightjars.org)
for the third time in four years. It was a night of bright moonlight and
calm wind, perfect for counting nightjars!
While our 10 year old carefully kept track of minutes, my husband and I
counted every nightjar heard during each minute of the 6 minute count
window for each of 10 stops which are one mile apart on our designated
survey route. That was a confusing sentence but sums up the method! Our
route begins very close to the Big Sandy portion of the TN National
Wildlife Refuge and follows Lick Creek road back toward the community of
Big Sandy.
I total, we had 35 nightjars, almost evenly split between
Chuck-will's-widows (18) and Whip-poor-wills (17).
This exceeded last year's total count by 5 and our 2013 count by 16. We
missed 2014.
For anyone interested in participating, the last date for our area in this
year's survey is May 29. See http://www.nightjars.org/ for more
information.
-Shawna Ellis
Paris, Henry County
