Description
This nightjar is small and short-tailed with white corners to the tail, a golden nape and collar, dark cheeks and white patches on the sides of the throat. The crown is grey and the breast is finely barred in brown. The males have more white on the tail while the female is more heavily streaked on the crown. Differentiated from Sykes's Nightjar by the dark undertail and from Jerdon's Nightjar by the shorter tail and white patches on the sides of the throat.
The call is distinctive and has been likened to a stone skipped on a frozen lake or a ping-pong ball bouncing rapidly and coming to rest.
It flies after sundown with an easy, silent moth-like flight. During the day, Indian Nightjar lies still on the ground, concealed by its plumage; it is then difficult to detect, blending in with the soil.
Read more about this topic: Indian Nightjar
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“Whose are the truly labored sentences? From the weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary man, we are glad to turn even to the description of work, the simple record of the month’s labor in the farmer’s almanac, to restore our tone and spirits.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He hath achieved a maid
That paragons description and wild fame;
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)