{"id":103299,"date":"2025-07-28T17:17:40","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T17:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/?p=103299"},"modified":"2026-02-10T22:32:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T22:32:15","slug":"novel-discoveries-about-eastern-whip-poor-will-nesting-and-chick-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2025\/07\/novel-discoveries-about-eastern-whip-poor-will-nesting-and-chick-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Novel discoveries about Eastern Whip-poor-will nesting and chick growth"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Liam Corcoran \u201918 \u201925 is contributing crucial new insights into the breeding biology of the Eastern Whip-poor-will. Because of their nocturnal activity and cryptic nature, few researchers have focused on whip-poor-wills\u2019 nesting habits. (Photos courtesy Liam Corcoran)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 July 28, 2025 \u2013 Known for their haunting, distinctive singing\u2014a repetitive “whip-poor-will” call that echoes through summer nights\u2014Eastern Whip-poor-wills have long inspired folklore, often seen as omens or symbols of mystery. Their elusive, nocturnal nature and expert camouflage make them far easier to hear than to see. Liam Corcoran \u201918 M.S. \u201925, a recent graduate of the äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾\u2019s interdisciplinary Biological and Environmental Sciences (BES) master\u2019s program from Warwick, Rhode Island, is working to demystify this bird through science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wild populations have declined precipitously since 1970. Because of their nocturnal activity and cryptic nature, very few researchers have focused on whip-poor-wills\u2019 nesting habits. New research from Corcoran published in The Wilson Journal of Ornithology<\/em><\/a> offers the first published growth data for whip-poor-wills, contributing critical baseline information for future ecological and conservation research. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extensive video documentation captured and analyzed by Corcoran shows how males and females interact at the nest, regularly conducting a coordinated courtship-like display, and how adult birds engage in active nest defense from potential predators. While there have been past anecdotal reports of female whip-poor-wills potentially singing, Corcoran\u2019s research provides the first video confirmation that females do indeed sing.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Corcoran has designed the first tool for estimating chick age, hoping to demystify the elusive, and vulnerable, bird. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Prior to Corcoran\u2019s work, no one had focused on chick growth. Thanks to his efforts, scientists now have a way to estimate chick age based on both measurements and plumage which can help identify the whole history of a nest, from nest initiation to hatching to fledging (when young birds first take flight).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope this research serves as a starting point and that chick growth may be further studied throughout the whip-poor-will breeding range,\u201d Corcoran says. \u201cI also hope the predictive tools that came out of this research prove useful to researchers looking to estimate the age of chicks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this research, Corcoran placed trail cameras at whip-poor-will nests found at three state management areas in Rhode Island\u2013Arcadia, Great Swamp, and Tillinghast\u2013as well as at the Nature Conservancy\u2019s Francis Carter Preserve and the Audubon Society of Rhode Island\u2019s Marion Eppley Wildlife Refuge. He documented unique behaviors of paired males and females, interactions with predators, and chick growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCapturing not one but four female whip-poor-wills singing the male song while on nest surprised me,\u201d Corcoran says. \u201cI was also very surprised to see how much whip-poor-wills perceived slugs and millipedes as potential threats. By far the most fulfilling part of this research was getting to know these birds on such a personal level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy I was able to capture so many interesting and unique behaviors on the trail cameras,\u201d he adds, \u201clike a courtship-like display that males and females regularly engage in at the nest and females singing while on nest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Known for their distinctive singing, Eastern Whip-poor-wills\u2019 nocturnal nature and expert camouflage make them easier to hear than to see. (Megan Gray)
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After earning an undergraduate degree in wildlife and conservation biology, Corcoran continued to work in Professor Scott McWilliams\u2019s lab and assist in conducting fieldwork. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile working as a field technician with the Rhode Island state herpetologist at the Division of Fish and Wildlife, an opportunity to apply for a graduate position in Professor McWilliams\u2019 lab came about and I decided to give it a shot,\u201d Corcoran says. In August of this year, he completed his M.S. in the Ecology and Ecosystems Science concentration of the BES program.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this research, Corcoran worked with McWilliams and Megan Gray, also a master\u2019s student in BES. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have dreamed of working with this species since I saw my first whip-poor-will,\u201d Corcoran says, \u201cand it was an absolute privilege to be able to see the inner workings of how whip-poor-wills behave around the nest and rear chicks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story was written by Anna Gray in the College of the Environment and Life Sciences.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 July 28, 2025 \u2013 Known for their haunting, distinctive singing\u2014a repetitive “whip-poor-will” call that echoes through summer nights\u2014Eastern Whip-poor-wills have long inspired folklore, often seen as omens or symbols of mystery. Their elusive, nocturnal nature and expert camouflage make them far easier to hear than to see. Liam Corcoran \u201918 M.S. \u201925, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":103300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5,1914,1916,1905],"class_list":["post-103299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-college-of-the-environment-and-life-sciences","tag-graduate","tag-partner-produced","tag-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103299"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103308,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103299\/revisions\/103308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}