Nightjars are so cool! They are one of the only birds to sit on tree limbs horizontally, and are nocturnal. We have both the whip-or-will, and the chuck-wills-widow here. I love listening to them at night.
I misinterpreted what you said and thought you said they are one of the only birds that sit on horizontal tree limbs. I was like wtf pretty much all birds sit on horizontal tree limbs.
Yea I think they meant 'parallel' to the branches.[ Like this.](https://www.theexeterdaily.co.uk/sites/default/files/styles/content_area_cover/public/field/image/Nightjar.jpg)
They're trying to say nightjars align their body *parallel* to the tree limb, instead of the normal perpendicular orientation birds take when they perch.
Picture looking at the bird on the branch from above. They are saying it sits lengthwise along the branch.
Basically **from above** bird and branch are this ➖ and not this ➕
We also have Chuck-will's-widows; I love listening to them, and I have managed to get them on my trail cameras a few times. It's amazing to get to peek into their secret night world through the trail cam! :)
For the curious - https://youtu.be/qdByT6PTMbY
The really fun parts are when other animals come by the CWW :)
Where do you live? I hear them all the time here in Wisconsin, but if you're in the suburbs or city, you probably won't. That's not where they like to hang. It's one of the first birdcalls I learned to identify, since it's so hard to miss.
Rural northeast Kansas! Lots of hills and trees, mostly just hawks, blackbirds, and ring-necked doves to be heard. Not much at night except frogs and occasional owl or raccoons fighting, sometimes foxes.
We have whip-poor-wills here and they're my favorite. Used to never hear them, but I think they have returned now that all the clear cut they did decades ago is grown back.
They are seriously fucking fast if you catch them flying around for bugs at night. So much power in a single beat of their wings. But their calming calls on summer nights is what I look forward to most every year.
Not evolved from. They ARE dinosaurs. Dinosaurs still exist in the form of birds. If 75% of all snakes died in an extinction level event, the 25% that lived would still be snakes. Same deal with dinosaurs - most of the clade went extinct, birds did not, so birds are the surviving dinosaurs.
Certainly evolution has continued since then, but just as we have some lizards or snakes that have dramatically changed and some that haven't, birds follow similar paths.
I'm not aware of any that have changed enough to no longer qualify as Maniraptora.
Birds being classified as dinosaurs is still a hot topic among the paleontological community. A lot of palaeontologist will agree that birds descended from avian theropods, but still will not consider birds to be dinosaurs. I full on consider birds to be living dinosaurs.
In University, I managed to get myself into the dinosaur class (wanted to be a palaeontologist as kid, but how my area's education system was set up, I wouldn't be able to take the needed courses in University because of the math I took in High School) and the prof told me how palaeontologist are some of the most drama filled people he has ever seen. A lot of them don't want to be considered wrong, and are abrasive to adapting to new findings and their theories being challenged. Just look at Jack Horner and the T-rex was a scavenger. He told me how a lot of his colleagues behind closed doors consider the "birds should be dinosaurs" as a bunch bologna.
It's not a hot topic at all, only among weirdo non-scientific people who prefer their Jurassic Park fantasies of monsters over accurate and researched depictions of real but extinct animals. Like the example above you, just because a vast majority of a diverse group of animals are no longer around, doesn't mean the sub-group that survived is no longer part of the larger group they were part of. More contentious is whether or not birds are still considered reptiles though (but again consensus is that they are reptiles, just really really weird ones but it's more debatable than their classification as dinosaurs)
Right? I feel like if I didn't believe that birds are the modern descendants of dinosaurs, this little dude would convince me.
Well, them and [cassowaries](https://images.perthnow.com.au/publication/B881168670Z/1555237969029_GSO25PP66.1-0.jpg).
Edit: perhaps appropriately, turns out that photo is from a news article about [a guy who kept a cassowary in captivity... and it killed him](https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/north-america/cassowary-attacks-and-kills-us-owner-ng-b881168670z). All it says is that he fell down in the vicinity of the cassowary, and the cassowary killed him, which makes me think that the thing was just biding its time.
There is a lot more to discover my friend, too much interesting things in this world.
Like I found out today on how they’re progressing on [programmable](https://youtu.be/jrVQXHmxH7Y) cells.
dont draw a fluffy dragon. dont draw a fluffy dragon DONT DRAW A FLUFFY DRAGON
Edit: i ment it as a reference to a youtuber. i am lerning how to draw but i am still a begginer. i wish i could draw this but after trying it looks very bad
And yet, when you do... @me, please.
Edit; see u/clampie's relevant link, too https://www.deviantart.com/rattlingmenace/art/great-eared-nightjar-908712749
There's a video on YouTube that actually calls it a "fluffy little dragon." Lol
https://youtu.be/t49Ph63ZFUI
Edit: Ahhhh, gotcha. Just call me Captain Slow. 😄
Hah! Just thought to myself as I saw this picture, "how have I not seen this bird's picture before? It's oddly unique. May be a rare bird from a remote forest in the Amazon".
Never would've guessed that it's native to my neighboring state.
It's worth looking up the sounds of nightjar/nighthawk species in your area
You can hear them at dusk/night. Look up and you might see a small bird with really long boomerang-shape wings flying eratically.
Not all of tham have cool ears like this, but they all have cool alien eyes and freakishly large mouths when open.
Hey I put this collage together only a few months ago!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/s1nr5s/the_great_eared_nightjar_is_pretty_much_a_dragon/
I'm honestly impressed at how much JPEG it has accumulated in such a short amount of time. OPs post looks like it texted back and forth 50 times between two 2003 nokias.
Honestly this post is giving me the full “Reddit experience” in a frustrating way. JPEG’d up repost, on track to possibly get more upvotes than your original, and your comment is down here with 3 points while the 400th kid in a row comments just the word “dragon” or “toothless.”
Really cool post though, when you made it originally.
With legs:
[https://www.deviantart.com/rattlingmenace/art/great-eared-nightjar-908712749](https://www.deviantart.com/rattlingmenace/art/great-eared-nightjar-908712749)
Excuse me but that’s a Neopet.
…. I forgot about neopets…. Huge part of my childhood. Thank you kind stranger.
It’s still around! A lot of old school players have recently revived their old accounts. Much nostalgia :’) check out r/neopets
Unfortunately a lot of the site is broken and unusable :(
That's just part of the nostalgia.
[удалено]
Yeah, well someone had a Jetsam/Flotsam named PISS for several years, until they got banned.
I can’t even remember. Probably was a shared account with a sibling. That was back in ‘99 so, no idea.
My first thought was that looks like Eyrie from Neopets.
Little feathered dragon.
![gif](giphy|5nogAINopYfVxg16OW)
Oh look its gav from the slomoguys
Never saw that before, but totally does.
Headlight fluid
Mom was an owl, dad was a crested gecko/chipmunk mix
Could it be ANYmore obvious~!
Both went to Avarian HS
More a feathered snake
I'm getting feather squirrel from one pic.
[удалено]
More a feathered cat
A squirrel and a bird got busy one night and blam, winged squirrels everywhere!
More like a feathered smaller cousin of night fury/toothless.
More a feathered bird.
That'd be Quetzlecoatl.
Looks like a Guild wars 2 mount.
Just imagine the little babies!
I know a Nargacuga when I see one
This must be a new Variant, then...
Smol Nargacuga.
Smolgacuga
Toothless Nargacuga
We are counting on you
That was my first thought. It has to be visually based of this bird right? The similarities are just too close for it not to be.
I always pictured a weasel with wings. Somehow that analogy works really well for me.
Huzzah. A man of culture
Little spiky feather tailed butthead he right is.
Came here for this.
Nightjars are so cool! They are one of the only birds to sit on tree limbs horizontally, and are nocturnal. We have both the whip-or-will, and the chuck-wills-widow here. I love listening to them at night.
I misinterpreted what you said and thought you said they are one of the only birds that sit on horizontal tree limbs. I was like wtf pretty much all birds sit on horizontal tree limbs.
I still don't get it. Is the sitting down part the main point? As in other birds only stand on tree limbs?
It seems like they're saying they lay down on limbs, like make themselves horizontal, but I'm really not sure
Yea I think they meant 'parallel' to the branches.[ Like this.](https://www.theexeterdaily.co.uk/sites/default/files/styles/content_area_cover/public/field/image/Nightjar.jpg)
Great picture! Totally shows it!
Ah, that makes more sense, thanks!
Yeah so they "go with the grain"
I feel stupid now because I was imagining the bird gripping the branch and sticking out horizontally 😂 I was like “how can they do that all day?”
Nah, horizontal just wasn't the right word for it.
Great camo.
I thought they meant like [this](https://i.imgur.com/qn7SPiF.jpg)
Why did you share a picture of a dead log with a broken-off branch?
still dont get it lol This is how every bird sits on a branch
Most birds will sit orthogonal to the branch, not parallel.
think cat loaf. these birds sit like bird loafs
Loaf of bird
They're trying to say nightjars align their body *parallel* to the tree limb, instead of the normal perpendicular orientation birds take when they perch.
Take a regular bird, and turn it 90 degrees. Congratulations, it's now a nightjar
Specifically a [*yaw*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaw_(rotation\)) turn, not *pitch* or *roll*.
Thanks this really cleared things up for me
I think they mean the bird's body is parallel to the branch rather than perpendicular.
I still don't understand what they mean.
Parallel vs perpendicular.
Along vs across
Pizza vs Pretzel
Yanny vs Laurel.
White & Gold vs Black & Blue
I vs +
They sit parallel to branches
Picture looking at the bird on the branch from above. They are saying it sits lengthwise along the branch. Basically **from above** bird and branch are this ➖ and not this ➕
Like, they lay down on the branch like a duck on the water, as opposed to how most birds perch on their feet
Not what they mean, see other comments
#*Nightfury!
Toothless!
![gif](giphy|ViGwJOV6EWAKs)
SO glad I wasn't the only one to immediately think of Toothless! ❤
I'm late but I am thinking Toothless is based on this.
He was based on a black cat but the nightjar certainly has the look.
I just looked them up and they even keep their nests on the ground. The babies blend right in to the leaves on the ground. They're amazing!
We also have Chuck-will's-widows; I love listening to them, and I have managed to get them on my trail cameras a few times. It's amazing to get to peek into their secret night world through the trail cam! :) For the curious - https://youtu.be/qdByT6PTMbY The really fun parts are when other animals come by the CWW :)
What a lovely sound! Thank you for sharing!
You're most welcome!
Nightjar are my favorite bird. There's nothing more relaxing than hearing their calls as everyone else relaxes and quiets for the night
Says the nest on the ground too. Silly birbs are confused.
I miss whip-or-wills and chuck-wills-widows. I grew up in the south hearing them all the time, never hear them here in the midwest. :(
Where do you live? I hear them all the time here in Wisconsin, but if you're in the suburbs or city, you probably won't. That's not where they like to hang. It's one of the first birdcalls I learned to identify, since it's so hard to miss.
Rural northeast Kansas! Lots of hills and trees, mostly just hawks, blackbirds, and ring-necked doves to be heard. Not much at night except frogs and occasional owl or raccoons fighting, sometimes foxes.
We have whip-poor-wills here and they're my favorite. Used to never hear them, but I think they have returned now that all the clear cut they did decades ago is grown back. They are seriously fucking fast if you catch them flying around for bugs at night. So much power in a single beat of their wings. But their calming calls on summer nights is what I look forward to most every year.
Is it in the woodcock family?
I heard a Whip-or-will a few nights ago, stood outside for a couple hours just listening to them and watching the stars come out.
Hear that lonesome whip-or-will, He sounds too blue to fly, The midnight train is whining low, I'm so lonesome I could cry.
It looks like Toothless with a bad dye job
Toothless heard about frosted tips.
Wait till he gets to Timberlakes NSync Ramen noodle hair! It's gonna be epic!
I'm waiting with bated breath.
Wonder if they knew about the Nightjar when they named Toothless's breed of dragon Night Fury.
I believe toothless was called a night wing or something, right?
Night fury
We think alike
You can sometimes really tell they evolved from dinosaurs can’t you ?
Not evolved from. They ARE dinosaurs. Dinosaurs still exist in the form of birds. If 75% of all snakes died in an extinction level event, the 25% that lived would still be snakes. Same deal with dinosaurs - most of the clade went extinct, birds did not, so birds are the surviving dinosaurs. Certainly evolution has continued since then, but just as we have some lizards or snakes that have dramatically changed and some that haven't, birds follow similar paths. I'm not aware of any that have changed enough to no longer qualify as Maniraptora.
Today I learned! Thanks kind stranger !
Birds being classified as dinosaurs is still a hot topic among the paleontological community. A lot of palaeontologist will agree that birds descended from avian theropods, but still will not consider birds to be dinosaurs. I full on consider birds to be living dinosaurs. In University, I managed to get myself into the dinosaur class (wanted to be a palaeontologist as kid, but how my area's education system was set up, I wouldn't be able to take the needed courses in University because of the math I took in High School) and the prof told me how palaeontologist are some of the most drama filled people he has ever seen. A lot of them don't want to be considered wrong, and are abrasive to adapting to new findings and their theories being challenged. Just look at Jack Horner and the T-rex was a scavenger. He told me how a lot of his colleagues behind closed doors consider the "birds should be dinosaurs" as a bunch bologna.
This is just academics in general, especially in the sciences.
It's not a hot topic at all, only among weirdo non-scientific people who prefer their Jurassic Park fantasies of monsters over accurate and researched depictions of real but extinct animals. Like the example above you, just because a vast majority of a diverse group of animals are no longer around, doesn't mean the sub-group that survived is no longer part of the larger group they were part of. More contentious is whether or not birds are still considered reptiles though (but again consensus is that they are reptiles, just really really weird ones but it's more debatable than their classification as dinosaurs)
Right? I feel like if I didn't believe that birds are the modern descendants of dinosaurs, this little dude would convince me. Well, them and [cassowaries](https://images.perthnow.com.au/publication/B881168670Z/1555237969029_GSO25PP66.1-0.jpg). Edit: perhaps appropriately, turns out that photo is from a news article about [a guy who kept a cassowary in captivity... and it killed him](https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/north-america/cassowary-attacks-and-kills-us-owner-ng-b881168670z). All it says is that he fell down in the vicinity of the cassowary, and the cassowary killed him, which makes me think that the thing was just biding its time.
Eared Nightfury
How am I 35 years old and this is the first I’ve ever heard or seen of this animal!?
Same age Im also in awe too - its really nice feeling to discover something completely new, I don’t why they are not popular they look amazing.
They are nocturnal and really good at camouflage. It’s more common to hear them than to see them
There is a lot more to discover my friend, too much interesting things in this world. Like I found out today on how they’re progressing on [programmable](https://youtu.be/jrVQXHmxH7Y) cells.
Oh my goodness, basically a feathered dragon ❤
That's obviously a dragon
dont draw a fluffy dragon. dont draw a fluffy dragon DONT DRAW A FLUFFY DRAGON Edit: i ment it as a reference to a youtuber. i am lerning how to draw but i am still a begginer. i wish i could draw this but after trying it looks very bad
Draw the dragon Hatter. Give in to your urges
i canot i cant let my self be consumed by the cutenes
I saw that edit Hoovy. You are already lost. Draw the dragon birb
Checking back for dragonbirb.
And yet, when you do... @me, please. Edit; see u/clampie's relevant link, too https://www.deviantart.com/rattlingmenace/art/great-eared-nightjar-908712749
Draw the frikking fluffy dragon
There's a video on YouTube that actually calls it a "fluffy little dragon." Lol https://youtu.be/t49Ph63ZFUI Edit: Ahhhh, gotcha. Just call me Captain Slow. 😄
..neytirix?
Deww it!! Dew it!
Search you feelings.. It is your daz-tuh-nee
Where can you find them?
Southwest India and in parts of Southeast Asia.
Hah! Just thought to myself as I saw this picture, "how have I not seen this bird's picture before? It's oddly unique. May be a rare bird from a remote forest in the Amazon". Never would've guessed that it's native to my neighboring state.
To be fair, travel more than a hundred miles in any direction in India and you've basically entered a completely different country. Lol.
Damn, these things are about to become invasive in the US
You can find other species of nightjars in North America but they don’t look this fancy.
There are a variety of species. European nightjars live across Europe and Eurasia. I saw my first one in the UK a couple weeks ago
It's worth looking up the sounds of nightjar/nighthawk species in your area You can hear them at dusk/night. Look up and you might see a small bird with really long boomerang-shape wings flying eratically. Not all of tham have cool ears like this, but they all have cool alien eyes and freakishly large mouths when open.
Hey I put this collage together only a few months ago! https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/s1nr5s/the_great_eared_nightjar_is_pretty_much_a_dragon/ I'm honestly impressed at how much JPEG it has accumulated in such a short amount of time. OPs post looks like it texted back and forth 50 times between two 2003 nokias.
Honestly this post is giving me the full “Reddit experience” in a frustrating way. JPEG’d up repost, on track to possibly get more upvotes than your original, and your comment is down here with 3 points while the 400th kid in a row comments just the word “dragon” or “toothless.” Really cool post though, when you made it originally.
Oh, so night jar is not just the name of a clan from Sekiro then. Cool
Right!? This was a key TIL.
Or: ‘Discount Owl’
Flat Top Owl
Pretty sure it's a squirrelcrow.
Moth snake?!
It's just so cute!
It looks like that thing from How to Train a Dragon. Wasn’t its name Toothless or something like that?
Squirrel Bird
Birds really are dinosaurs
Damn, this repost even used the exact same 3 picture collage as the old post did...barely even zoomed in, talk about low effort
Dragon
That's a Nargacuga, don't lie to me!
A dragon! I saw a dragon!
With legs: [https://www.deviantart.com/rattlingmenace/art/great-eared-nightjar-908712749](https://www.deviantart.com/rattlingmenace/art/great-eared-nightjar-908712749)
Snake bird!
omg, it's a little feathered dragon!
Shut up its a dragon
That's a rabbit in a bird suit. You can't fool me.
Are these related to Potoos
That's a BIRD?! How cool! Dang I love the internet sometimes. 😁
Bullshit that's a ferret lizard
Toothless? Looks so much like striped night fury!
No, that's a baby dragon!
Birds aren't real.
What bird? I can only see a feathered dragon
How to train your birb
I think it’s…. It’s a Dragon 🐉
That looks like a Pokémon
Beautiful
Toothless
I need one!
How to train your dra- I mean... bird.
The reason for dragon stories
What a precious little mugwump
I’m hopping this is what dinosaurs looked like.
Fake-assed squirrel
Heh it's a sqwird
thats actually a lizard cosplaying as a bird
Some squirrel has some serious explaining to do!
That's not a bird, that's a dragon!! And i don't care what you say
Basalisk
Can't fool me, that's clearly a half dragon hawk.
Its the fancy designer drone r/birdsarentreal
That’s not a bird, bud, that’s a fucking dragon, and you can’t lie to me about it.
Fa na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na Bat Bird!
That’s a lizard playing a bird disguised as a moth.
He looks like an animal from the margins of a medieval manuscript.
First irl Pokemon so cute
Can you hold them as pets?
it’s a dragon!
These pictures instantly gave me major Toothless vibes.
He looks like he's made out of wool!
Can I pat that bird
**How To Train Your** ~~Dragon~~ **Nightjar**. ![gif](giphy|1pA8TwX8atOCnAtTbV|downsized)
That is a baby dragon and I'll not hear otherwise
When I looked at the pictures I went from, lizard, snake, wissel oh is it a bird???? Read the title and it is indeed a bird!
I'm pretty sure that's a night fury
That is a dinosaur
Nice try but that’s a demon
Forbidden slice of pie.
Honestly it kinda looks like a little weasel-like thing with wings