Mark Peterson’s post on finding a Poorwill in February suggests the Poorwill had probably been in some state of hibernation. So here is a short history of Poorwill hibernation. The species was first noted on the Lewis and Clark Expedition on Oct. 16, 1804 near the junction of the Missouri and Cannonball Rivers, near Emmonsburg, N. D, Where Meriwether Lewis found a Common Poorwill in a motionless state, he actually pierced it with his knife and it didn’t respond. 140 years later (1944) the question was posed in scientific journals “Do poorwills hibernate.” In 1946 Dr. E. C. Jaeger found a poor-will torpid in a cave in southern California which was the first documentation that scientists excepted that Poor-wills hibernate. When hibernating, Poorwills are known to drop their temperature from a normal of 102° to 65° and longest period documented for as Poorwill hibernating the was from late November 1947 to late February 1948. A large portion of a Poorwills diet consists of beetles, which are high in unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats do not solidify in cold temperatures and therefore could be available as a food source during hibernation (Cleere 1998). The first naturalist to note hibernation in birds was Francisco Hernandez (1514-1578). Hernandez traveled around Mexico in a litter and had assistants gather important natural history items for him. He was the first to note that hummingbirds went into a torpor when the weather became cold. Of course his contemporizes thought he was nuts. Bob Righter Denver CO
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