Perhaps the most exciting sighting of this trip so far was my sighting of several Common Nighthawks at the Narrows campground in Malheur. Just before going to bed I noticed them flying overhead, making very strange sounds as they swooped through the air.
I enjoyed the experience but I knew that I would never be able to capture them flying at that speed in such low light. So I resigned myself to simply enjoying the experience.
I was pleasantly surprised while fixing breakfast at 5:00 AM when three Nighthawks suddenly swooped down and landed on a railing a few feet away from my camp site.
Needless to say, the lighting wasn’t great at 5:00, but I didn’t think that they would be around long so I took a shot.
As it turned out, the three of them were still there when I was about to leave to go birding at 5:30 so I was able to get even better pictures of them.
I was really amazed how the bird folds its long wings into such a compact shape.
