birdsoup

I certainly do not know when the next full moon is scheduled.

But the Mexican subspecies of the Whip-poor-will knows. A Whip-poor-will is a night flying, insect eating bird that catches insects in the flight. You might think of them as nocturnal swallows, zipping around chasing flying bugs, often at dusk or dawn.

You might expect that Whip-poor-wills catch more insects when there is a lot of moonlight. That is not surprising. But what is amazing, is that Whip-poor-wills seems to know when the full moon will occur. It lays 2 cream color eggs with splotches about 20 days before the full moon. Eggg take about 16-17 days to hatch which means that when the young are emerging from the egg, the amount of moonlight will at its peak . The parents have plenty of light to see and catch insects for the youngsters. Neat.

But how do they know when the full moon is scheduled?