http://www.theoutdoorwire.com/image_archive/2297403.jpeg> Chuck-will's widow on nest in Virginia. Photo by Bart Paxton.

Long before the indoor pursuits of video games, the internet and social media filled the evenings of many Americans, the simple summer pleasure of sitting outdoors at sunset and hearing the night sounds rise from the darkness was common. One highlight of this evening experience was hearing the distinctive calls of whip-poor-wills and nighhawks echoing, almost eerily, across the darkened landscape as the birds identified their territories.

Throughout the continent, fewer birds collectively known as Nightjars are heard today, and it's not just because people are listening less, explains Bryan Watts of the Center for Conservation Biology (CCB).

Nightjars, or goatsuckers, are an enigmatic group of birds in North America. Compared to many other bird species, very little is known about the basic aspects of their biology, habitat use and population status due to their cryptically nocturnal lifestyle.

In recent years, conservationists and the general public have come to share a general sense that populations of Nightjars are dramatically declining. However, there were no standardized data available to help describe these changes or to help with reversing population losses.

In 2007, The Center for Conservation Biology called on citizen scientists to help fill the information gap with nightjars by initiating the Nightjar Survey Network. As a result, an army of birdwatchers, agency biologists, and nightjar lovers have volunteered during the wee hours of the night to conduct standardized surveys of routes across North America. The effort has resulted in the most comprehensive database to date on the group.

With the 2016 survey year now complete, the CCB reported this week that a total of more than 23,000 nightjars of nine species have been recorded. Over the next year, CCB biologists will begin to explore the database for spatial and temporal patterns that will help with future nightjar management. Moving forward, it is hoped to expand the volunteer base and survey network into additional areas that have received little coverage.

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According to the CCB, nocturnal behaviors of Nightjars and activities such as calling and foraging increase under bright moonlight conditions and it is thought that breeding may actually be timed with the lunar schedule. The survey is designed utilizing protocols to take advantage of these behaviors by conducting surveys only during bright moonlit nights so detection rates will be higher and more consistent.

Nightjar surveys are easy to perform and take about two hours to complete. Volunteers conduct roadside counts at night, on scheduled bright moonlit nights, by driving and stopping at 10 points along a predetermined 9-mile route. At each point, the observer counts all Nightjars seen or heard during a 6-minute period. No artificial broadcast of the species call is utilized.

The Nightjar Survey Network is made possible by the great open source projects Ruby on Rails and WordPress, and hosted by Heroku and the College of William and Mary. Map visualizations are made possible by Google Maps and Google Fusion Tables. The Nightjar Survey Network was designed by Howell Creative Group. Application development was provided by Solertium.

To learn more about participating in the Nightjar Survey Network, go to:http://www.nightjars.org andhttp://www.ccbbirds.org/.

- J.R. Absher, The Birding Wire