This bird is strictly nocturnal and anyone who lives near a wooded countryside is familiar with their call which begins at dusk and continues erratically throughout the night.  Its pleasing quality adds enchantment to the world of shadows.  One hundred repetitions, with hardly a pause, are not uncommon.  The record may be one thousand and eighty eight, counted by famed naturalist John Burroughs.  Males sing regularly from a number of perches close to the ground, within their territory and follow a defined route each evening.  By sitting motionless at one station, an observer can be rewarded by a vocal performance at arm's length.

The Whip-poor-will breeds in the eastern half of the continent and in Canada around the Great Lakes and St Lawrence Seaway south to Kansas and east to Virginia.  The winter range is in Florida and the Gulf coast southward to Panama.

During courtship the male will call the female.  The female will land and strut, with wings and tail spread, grunting and chuckling with head low while trembling.  The male will approach and circle the female, purring while waving and bobbing its head.

Two white eggs, scrawled with gray and brown are laid in a shallow depression among on dead leaves, often in younger growth near a woodland edge.  The eggs are incubated by both parents but the male will take over caring for the brood if the female starts a second clutch.  The eggs hatch in 19 to 20 days the young are semiprecocial and leave the nest within 20 days and distraction displays may be performed if the nest is threatened.  The reproductive cycle is synchronized with the lunar cycle to result in moonlit nights when foraging to feed nestlings as the adults hunt mainly by sight rather than sound.   They eat only insects and are especially fond of moths, capturing them on the wing with their extra-wide mouths.

Length 9 1/2 to 10 inches