Chuck-will’s-widow

What? What is a Chuck-will’s-widow?

I had never heard of it, until it popped up on my Merlin app yesterday (5/24/26) with a RED dot next to the photo. Red dot means, not supposed to be there.

I hadn’t heard of the species because, based on the distribution map at All-About-Birds, the Chuck-will’s-widow doesn’t breed, winter over or even migrate through this area. I’m in south-central Illinois. The map excludes all of Illinois for this bird.

OK. So, in my last post I explained that Merlin sometimes picks up a sound that isn’t even a bird. So, I went on filming the Bluebird House where I was observing a pair feeding their chicks.

This morning, I was watching videos that I took during yesterday’s outing. My camera was aimed towards House “N.” It was a long video – over three minutes. I don’t usually remember exactly what I might have filmed after I come back home from birding. I wasn’t even sure a Bluebird showed up in that particular three minutes of filming. However, there were many birds singing. So, I put my cell phone with the Merlin app up to the speaker as I was watching the video, because I wanted to count how many species I captured in three minutes. This is a very “vocal” time of the year for birds.

At the end of the video, there was a very loud, distinct vocalization. Chuck-will’s-widow popped up on the Merlin app. What?????? I actually got it on a recording????

So, here’s that video. The Chuck-will’s-widow doesn’t happen until about 3:07. However, in case you are interested, here are the other 16 species that I caught:

• Yellow-breasted Chat
• Red-winged-blackbird
• N. Cardinal
• Indigo Bunting
• N. Bobwhite
• Great Crested Flycatcher
• Gray Catbird
• Common Yellowthroat
• N. Flicker
• Orchard Oriole
• Blue Jay
• Killdeer
• House Finch
• Barn Swallow
• House sparrow
• Dickcissel

Oh! And the Bluebird shows up at the end, too!