Episode 96: Eastern Whip-Poor-Will – Voice of the Wild

This is Brodie with Illinois Extension and I’m here with a new “voice of the wild”

This bird is the subject of famous poems and folks songs, and some listeners may recognize them from video games, which sometimes use the call as nighttime ambience or to alert the player that day has turned to night. That’s a reflection of this bird’s real-life habit of calling out their name on warm summer nights after they’ve returned from foraging moths on the wing at sunset. This is the whip poor will.

The whip-poor-will was once a common sound throughout much of the eastern US, Illinois included…but their numbers have declined substantially. The reason is not well understood but is probably related to insect declines and destruction of habitat by agriculture. If you’d like to help scientists better understand this species, you can join the Monitoring of owls and nightjars…or MOON program. Learn more at the voice of the wild website. Here’s the eastern whip-poor-will again.

Thank you to the Macaulay library at the Cornell lab for today’s sound. Learn more about voice of the wild at go.illinois.edu/VOW