After several successful years of monitoring efforts focused on assessing nightjar occupancy and distributions within the state, the Maine Nightjar Monitoring Project expanded its scope to address significant knowledge gaps in several areas of this bird’s life history and breeding biology in Maine.

Relatively little was known about reproductive success, nest predation rates, and diet composition of nightjar on their breeding grounds within Maine. We know even less about the migratory ecology of Maine’s whip-poor-wills and nighthawks, missing fundamental details on migratory timings, pathways, migratory connectivity, stopover locations, and potential threats during movements.

This project complements our long-term monitoring efforts to gather critical insights into these areas of whip-poor-will and nighthawk biology. Working with our partners at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and the Biodiversity Research Institute, we launched a research efforts beginning in 2023 to conduct both nesting ground surveys and movement research in subregions within the state targeting Eastern whip-poor-will. These complementary research pursuits have generated a wealth of knowledge in several currently understudied aspects of nightjar ecology to inform their management in Maine.