First two pictures were made by Candy McManiman on the granite plateau near the Voltzberg in Suriname, a male, probably breeding there on the black granite. Then follows a beautifully camouflaged female potographed by Pascal Dubois in French Guyane in 2002.
Nightjars are unconspicious brown-black birds with little
brown-yellow stripes and blots on their feathers and some white
in their wings, throat and tail. They can be seen everywhere in
Suriname, but mostly on the savanna and along open places in the
forest. During the day they hide, sitting motionless between
bushes and fallen leaves. Their feathers give them a perfect
camouflage and they will only fly away when you almost step on
them. The nightjar just above is a blackish nightjar (female, she
has no white at all), the darkest species. Twelve different
species are known from Suriname.
At night some species can easily be spotted sitting on the road
when their eyes reflect the lights of your car. They spend the
night (besides with sitting on the road) with chasing insects in
the air with their mouths wide open. With full moon they are more
active then on other days. Their flight is without any noise and
to see them you have to stand on a place where their swift
movements stand out against the sky. In a very sharp turn their
wings may whistle.
These nightbirds are important in the live of indians and
bushnegroes. They may represent ghosts and imitating their sound
can bring harm. Killing the bird brings even more misfortune
(hitting them by accident with your car might be less serious).
A nest is ususally made by laying their egg on the floor on or
between fallen leaves. They breed by sitting all day motionless
on their egg (male and female take turns) where they are
camouflaged. The blackish nightjar sometimes breeds on black
rocks (near Voltzberg f.i. as in the first two pictures) in the
open and there it must cool its egg by puffing nearly all the
time with its mouth wide open. I did not succed in taping their
song, this is the sound of a male
blackish nightjar I approached.
Two photos by Johan Ingels, Saůl, French Guiana. Above a male (with a little bit of white on the wing) on a egg, below a downy young. Nests are often found along a road on the ground amidst pebbles and broken twigs and fallen leaves. Young are nearly invisble against such a background, even more than the parents. On the black granite the young ,quickly after hatching, seek cover between the fallen leaves under the Clusia plant that is often near the nest. Then follows another photo from French Guiana by Pascal Dubois and one by Alexandre Renaudier (near Mana also French Guiana).
Observations of the blackish nightjar in Suriname, often on their nest. Each small square indicates the observation of at least one (group) of these birds, the medium ones at least 4 observations and the largest ones 10 or more. The color of each square indicates: blue for coastal area, yellow for savanna and red for rainforest.
Photo by J.H. Ribot, Mapane Suriname 1979 (road kill)
| Distribution in Suriname (explanation) | |
| Coastal area |  |
| Savanna |  |
| Forests | |
| Mountain forests | |
| Sipalawini savanna |  |
Names in:
More photos of Surinamese nightjars and other birds