Notes on the breeding behaviour and nesting preferences of Blackish nightjar (Nyctipolus nigrescens) in the Napo province in eastern Ecuad

Abstract

We describe the first breeding record of a Blackish nightjar (Nyctipolus nigrescens) in a pasture habitat dominated by tropical grasses (Figure 1(a–d)) located at the buffer zone of the Colonso-Chalupas Biological Reserve, in the Napo province in eastern Ecuador. The record was made during the wet season at the study area (March – June) and helps to fill a gap of observa-tions on reproductive and breeding behaviour strate-gies of this species.N. nigrescens are nocturnal insectivores that inhabit rocky outcrops, granite formations, sparsely vegetated open areas, trails and quiet roads and around rivers [1–3]. This species is endemic to the neotropical region and its distribution ranges from Brazilian Amazonia to the southern Guianas and from south-eastern Colombia to eastern Ecuador and northern Bolivia in which it occurs from sea level to approximately 1200 m a.s.l. [1–3]. In Ecuador, N. nigrescens occurs in non- inundated lowland forests above 300 m in elevation and in the eastern Andean foothills, being classified as “uncommon to rare” [4,5]. Since caprimulgids are mostly nocturnal and have cryptic behaviour, not a great deal of literature is available on their breeding strategies [6]. Still, N. nigrescens is one of the best described Caprimulgidae regarding behaviour and breeding due to its large distribution range [7]. So far, breeding records have been documented in Ecuador [8,9], Brazil [10], Surinam [11,12], the Guianas [13,14] with also the documented double brood in French Guiana [15] and aberrant coloured juveniles in Ecuador [9].