Chuck-will’s-widow twitch

 Rarely does something fall right into your lap… but it’s nice when it does! Scrolling the rare bird alert digest yesterday and saw there was a sighting of chuck-will’s-widow (henceforth CWWI) almost exactly across the river from work. I hemmed and hawed a little over running over, but when I saw the last confirmed sighting was 5 minutes ago, I had to go for it. Blake was on board as well as we’d already blocked the time out for the gym.

After a stressful power walk - will it be there? will this rain that’s starting up perturb it? - we came across a serene looking man with Jimmy Buffet vibes on the other side of the river. He just looked at us and said “did you see it?” Presumptuous but correct. “Three footbridges down,” said this birding/island life sage. We pressed on, and a young woman said something similar - “just over there, by night shift.” A few minutes later we saw the crowd, and then…

Well, it doesn’t look like much in my digiscoped photo. But it was a nice reddish brown color, with the weird nightjar shape one expects from field guides. It is simply Cool to see a bird that is so different from the typical layout. Passersby were less impressed. One college age chap with an English accent said something like “I have no idea what the hell that is” in reaction to everyone staring at a lump in a tree. But the birders knew. Birding Jimmy Buffet knew. 

If only twitching was always so close and so reliable, I would hit every one - and my performance at the gym and work would suffer.