Can you spot the at-risk species in this photo?
If you can’t spot it, I don’t blame you! What you’re looking at in this picture is a common nighthawk (Chordeiles minor) sitting on the ground in one of our tree-plant blocks earlier this summer.
In Ontario, the common nighthawk is considered a species of special concern because populations are in decline. As such, EACOM has procedures in place to ensure that nighthawks, and other species at risk, are not impacted by our forestry operations. In this post, I’ll be talking about the common nighthawk, and two specific instances where our team used best management practices to help protect the species.
Common nighthawks are medium-sized birds about 21-25 cm in length. They are speckled and brown in colour with pointed wings, a small beak and have disproportionally large black eyes. Common nighthawks are also a species of so-called ground-nesting birds, meaning that they make their nests on the ground rather than in trees. It just so happened that this type of nest is exactly what my supervisor Julia came across while supervising tree plant earlier this summer on June 23rd.
Common nighthawks naturally nest in open areas such as fields or cut-blocks, and while they may not be quite as common as their name suggests, it is not unusual to see them in this type of environment. When the nest was discovered, there were no tree planters in the area, but to be safe, we established a 150m “area of concern” around the nest as is outlined in our forest management plan. The radius of the “AOC” was set at 150m because more than 5 people would be visible from the nest site once the planters arrived. This would ensure that our reforestation activities would not disturb the mother bird during its critical breeding period. As the day progressed and planters were leaving the area, the severity rating subsided. When fewer than 5 planters were visible from the nest site, the AOC was reduced to 75 meters so that more trees could be planted. A win for both our forest and this particular bird!
Believe it or not, this was not the only time I encountered this species on the job this summer! On July 27th, my supervisor Matt and I were walking proposed site prep locations on the southern Spanish Forest when we came across another common nighthawk nest. This time however, the nest contained not eggs; but chicks! Like the eggs and the mature bird, they were also surprisingly camouflaged. At the time of the discovery, my supervisor and I were the only people on site, and since site prep operations would not occur until well after the end of the common nighthawk’s critical breeding period, we simply documented their presence with some photos and let them be. Another win-win for our silviculture operations and this species-at-risk!
Aside from learning that the common nighthawk has very effective camouflage, the biggest lesson I took from these experiences was witnessing our environmental regulations and policies in action. When I first started my job this summer, I was required to read up on these regulations, but when all one experiences is lines of policy in a manual, it can be hard to understand how any of it makes a difference. Seeing policy in action however, can really change your perspective! The actions that our team took in both instances really did make a difference for these particular birds, and on a larger scale, the sum of these individual actions can make a difference across the entire ecosystem.
I hope you enjoyed reading! Make sure to stay tuned for more stories from my “Green Dream” summer!
Mark
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