ABOVE: © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM, ANDREA QUARTARONE
The first time Roger Payne heard a whip-poor-will, a nocturnal bird named for its distinctive calls, was as a child while visiting friends of his family in New Jersey. He sat captivated by the sounds for hours, deeply moved by the boldness of the bird, whose seemingly endless song rang out fearlessly into the darkness. “In the dead of night, when one would have thought of all kinds of reasons not to draw attention to yourself, it nevertheless did,” Payne recalls.
Now in his 80s, Payne still vividly remembers that night. He’s only heard whip-poor-wills on a few more occasions since then—and opportunities to hear them have become increasingly scarce. Populations of the bird have steadily declined in recent decades and are expected to continue falling as climate change destroys their already scarce habitats, which are primarily the forests of the eastern United States. For ...
