ML278098981

Observation details

One was found in upland Cerrado. It responded to roadside playback around 21.45 at -15.9773331, -47.9378393. Numerous photographs were taken, as well as a single audio recording of the bird. To our knowledge, this species was not known from this location prior to this finding. We spent the night exploring the Cerrado for night birds, specifically nightjar species that we would use playback as a means of determining their presence or not. Nearby areas of Cerrado with a species of plant which we understood this species to favor produced no sightings, although other common nightjar species were recorded. When we arrived at this area it was the last area of Cerrado we intended to search that night. We played a tape more in hope than expectation, but were rewarded with a very quick response from the individual reported here. It responded vocally less than a minute after the tape was played, and sounded close. However, subsequent playbacks could not induce the same response, the bird initially sounding distant before falling silent. We decided to head into the Cerrado in the direction that the bird’s final calls had emerged from. Here the Cerrado was more open and with a quick scan using a torch we detected eyeshine. Although the eyeshine was distant we were able to approach and could soon identify the unform grey plumage of this nightjar. In the end we approached to roughly 1 meter distant with the bird remaining perched. At this distance it was easy to see that the bird had short body length, similar in size to Little Nightjar, and an almost uniform grey plumage. The mantle feathers had black centers and shafts, while the wings and coverts had cream streaks. The black primaries were almost invisible in the field but are quite striking in the photographs.