My Neighbors, the Nighthawks 



By S. R. MILLS 



With Photographs by the Author 



DURING the month of June, 191 o, I was especially interested in a pair 

 of Nighthawks which frequented the neighborhood of my home 

 (Kingston, Ontario, Canada). From the garden I could watch these 

 birds on their incessant sky-hunt for insects, each selecting its section of the 

 upper air apart from the other. There was a peculiar fascination in watching 

 one of them climb so high in little ascending jerks, then to see him 'side-slip' 

 and come tearing down in a 'nose-dive' until on a level with the housetops, 

 where he would 'straighten out' with a bongk! and whirr upwards to begin 

 again his fitful, irregular climb towards the heavens. 



A ROOF-NESTING NIGHTHAW K 



One bright morning, while watching this continued aerial performance, I 

 saw one of the Nighthawks alight on the neighboring housetop, about a hundred 

 feet from me, and I was greatly impressed with the contrast in appearance 

 while on the wing, and squatting on the roof railing. In the air he is most 

 graceful, but out of it he is awkward and ungainly. He had been in repose 

 but a short time when by chance a Bronzed Grackle alighted on the railing a 

 few feet from him. The Grackle was plainly startled on finding a living eye 

 in that mottled mass of feathers, but after a little hesitation he grew bold and, 

 strutting up to him, stared him in the eye in a most impolite manner. The 



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