Pennant-winged Nightjar (Caprimulgus vexillarius), male, family Caprimulgidae, order Caprimulgiformes, South Africa

Griffember 8 (#85) - pennant-winged nightjar (LC) [breeding male]

I can't believe there's birds that actualy look like this! Found through sub-Saharan Africa, only males develop these long streamers, and only in the breeding season, so they are probably for display purposes.

Joining in gryphons with @ains-art

Also I couldn't decide between purple or green background:

2026DrawDinoDaily, Day 77, Marchosauria, 17/03/2026

Standard-winged Nightjar (Caprimulgus longipennis)

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

As we move into the Strisores clade, our next order are the Caprimulgiformes, commonly known as “nightjars”, “bugeaters”, or “nighthawks”. Caprimulgiformes is composed on one family, Caprimulgidae, and 19 genera.

Nightjars are medium-sized nocturnal or crepuscular birds, characterised by long pointed wings, short legs with small feet, and short beaks at the tip of a large mouth. Their primary source of food are night-flying insects, and they fill a similar role to insect-eating bats. Nightjars usually catch their prey by flying through insects with their wide mouths open. They have soft, cryptic plumage, allowing them to camouflage against trees while they sleep during the days. They have rictal bristles around their beak which function similarly to whiskers. Nightjars live on all continents except Antarctica, and some islands, in almost all habitats aside from the most arid deserts.

Nightjars are generally solitary, but will form flocks for the purpose of migration and/or for mating displays. They usually nest on the ground, laying one or two patterned eggs directly onto bare ground. It has been suggested and quoted that nightjars can move their eggs and chicks from the nesting site in the event of danger by carrying them in their mouths, but there is little evidence to support this idea. The nocturnal and secretive nature of nightjars makes it hard to study their behavior. It is unknown whether nightjars mate for life, but they are monogamous for the duration of the mating season.

Strisores have a well-represented fossil record, with fossils of most major strisorean lineages known from the Paleogene. Strisores evolved in the Eocene, with its two main extant lineages separating about 60–55 million years ago. At around 40 mya, the common ancestors of Caprimulgidae and Nyctibiidae diverged from those of the oilbird and frogmouths.

Propaganda under the cut:

this is the plain nightjar! while the name is a bit blunt, it is indeed one of the most uniformly-plumaged of the nightjars. (apparently, nightjars are so named because of how jarring it is to hear one suddenly call in the dead of night.) it occurs throughout central Africa and also on the southwest Arabian Penninsula. a small-scale migrant, living in most open-sky environments within its range but only breeding in the northern arid savannah.

nocturnal bug-catchers, with their enormous eyes intended to be able to spot flying insects using even the smallest bit of light. individual birds may be grey, brown, or rust-colored, each suited to loiter in different spots - and their unpatterned plumage lends itself very well to the bare earth and grasses of this critter's chosen homes. slightly sexually dimorphic, which i find unusual for a nightjar; males bear white-bordered tails, whereas females do not.

they seem to take to rockfalls or trees for their daytime resting spots, using roads mainly for nighttime naps. they trust so much in their camouflage that they respond to disturbance with just continuing to sit, only going for an escape once it's clear they've been seen. those little legs are capable of quite the launch upwards to kick off flight. even with their large variation in plumage, there is not yet one which camouflages on asphalt. and that's probably for the better, seeing as cars are more likely to leave you be if they can see you. it's unusual for an apex predator to work that way, but so it goes.

25 June 2026