The breeding nighthawks in the Northeast are nominate Chordeiles minor minor. They are quite dark above, with primarily blackish upperpart feathers mottled with white or buffy, with wide blackish barring below. Although juvenile nighthawks are variable, they tend to resemble adults in overall color. This bird is clearly very pale sandy gray in color, and while the bird is brightly lit in some areas, the tertials and coverts are clearly very pale and marked with salt-and-pepper markings that are never seen on Eastern birds. C. m. chapmani of the eastern Great Plains looks quite similar to minor.

Pyle (1997. Identification Guide to North American Birds: Part I) discusses the range and appearance of Common Nighthawk subspecies. The most proximal subspecies in this group, and the one likely involved in the Massachusetts record, is C. m. sennetti. This pale subspecies breeds on the northern Great Plains east to southwestern Minnesota. Other pale subspecies include C. m. howelli which breeds from Wyoming to northeast New Mexico and central Texas, the rather cinnamon C. m. henryi which breeds from southeast Utah to southeast Colorado and south to southern Arizona and west Texas; and C. m. aserriensis which breeds in south Texas. Common Nighthawks winter in South America, but much remains to be learned about the extent of their range and where the different subspecies spend the winter. South of the United States there are only a couple reports of C. m. sennetti: one collected at San Blas 18 Oct 1929 (Wetmore, A. 1968. The Birds of the Republic of Panama, part 2. p. 206) and reference to one in Colombia (AOU 1957. Check-list of North American Birds, 5th edition).

We found no photos of clear sennetti on the internet. The photo of this adult in Colorado is rather buffy and may be C. m. howelli (or sennetti intergrade) and look quite different from this adult C. m. minor in New Hampshire. An adult in Kansas is presumably C. m. howelli by range. Photos of juveniles are harder to find, but this photo of a juvenile C. m. minor in British Columbia.

Dickerman (1990) summarized geographic variation in the plumage of juvenile Common Nighthawks, which strongly suggests that the Massachusetts bird pertains to C. m. sennetti. He says: "This subspecies has the palest juvenal plumage of all subspecies. It is very different from the juvenal plumage of minor. The black centers of the dorsal feathers are reduced or absent, and the feathers have fine vermiculations. Feather edges are gray to pale buff." By comparison, C. m. minor is discussed as variable, but with consistently dark centers to the upperparts and cinnamon or buff fringes to the feathers of the upperparts. Even the palest birds do not approach sennetti in color. Juvenile C. m. henryi appears to be eliminated, since Dickerman mentions that they have "extensive dorsal feather edgings of rich ochraceous to deep cinnamon. The venter is creamy buff, with deep buff to pale cinnamon edgings on the sparsely barred feathers of the breastband". The very fine barring visible on the lower flanks of the Plum Island bird is also consistent with sennetti, which has the finest barring in adults (less than 1 mm vs. 1-2 mm in most other subspecies; Pyle 1997). Not discussed by  Dickerman, but perhaps of use for field identification, is the width and color of the primary fringing in juveniles. On the Plum Island bird these are clearly very broad creamy-white, while on photos of juvenile C. m. minor these are much narrower cinnamon or reddish-buff (presumably similar on C. m. henryi). Although in-hand examination might be required to conclusively eliminate howelli and aserriensis, it seems clear that this is not the known breeding subspecies (C. m. minor) for Massachusetts, and the evidence (exceeding pale plumage, faintest hint of buff in plumage, no dark in crown, and very broad pale primary edging) seem to point strongly to C. m. sennetti.

There is very little precedence for western subspecies of Common Nighthawks in the East. An immature male C. m. sennetti was found dead on the beach at Assateague Island, Worcester County, MD, 4 Oct 1974 (*USNM 575735, Laybourne & Post. 1993. Laybourne, R.C. and W. Post. 1993. Western races of the Common Nighthawk on the east coast of North America. Chat  57(4):96-97). Other easterly records of sennetti include three collected in Ohio in Aug and Sep and a September specimen from Kentucky (Laybourne & Post 1993). Laybourne & Post (1993) also mention an immature male C. m. howelli specimen from Sullivan’s Island, Charleston County, SC, 16 Oct 1983, so this more westerly subspecies should be watched for as well. The dark-plumaged, eastern Great Plains breeding, chapmani is also a potential vagrant to the East ), as is the pale, Great Basin, C. m. henryi that has reached FL (Pyle 1997). Late-season Common Nighthawks may be more likely to be western subspecies; the Massachusetts, Maryland, and South Carolina records listed above are well past the migration peak for Common Nighthawks, which have mostly vacated the East by late September.

Of particular interest, this juvenile Common Nighthawk on Corvo, Azores, 25 Oct 2009 is also exceedingly pale (although not as pale as the Plum Island bird and with thinner white tips to the primaries) and also seems to be a candidate for one of the western subspecies. The lack of a well-defined throat patch and lack of a tail band indicate a female.  Given the late date well past the bulk of Common Nighthawk migration, perhaps this is not as surprising as it might seem from sheer geographic 'probability'. Of further interest, photos of two different juvenile Common Nighthawks appear in Cottridge and Vinicombe's 1996 Rare Birds in Britain and Ireland: A Photographic Record. One of these is a September 1989 bird from Tresco, Isles of Scilly, which looked blackish and buff above and has narrow buff primary tips, consistent with C. m. minor. The other bird was photographed on St. Agnes in October 1971 (notably late!) and the in-flight photo shows a bird with very pale upperwing coverts and back and a broad pale trailing edge to the inner primaries and secondaries. Both the Azores bird and the Scilly bird seem to show some dark feathers to the back (the Plum Island bird may have one dark feather on the back) and the Azorean bird also has dark on the crown and seems to have relatively thick barring on the underparts. Perhaps one or both of these birds pertain to C. m. howelli, which is darker than sennetti and has occurred in mid-October in South Carolina.

We encourage Massachusetts birders to try to photograph ANY late Common Nighthawk they observe and to immediately alert other birds if a roosting bird is found. It may well be that C. m. sennetti is more regular in the East than the few records would suggest (note that the Old World may have as many records!). And if you do discover one, please share the images with the Massachusetts Avian Records Committee (MARC)!

[Research and summary by Marshall J. Iliff. Please note that this record has not yet been reviewed by the MARC.]

Apparent Sennett's Common Nighthawk (Chordeiles minor sennetti), at Plum Island,  Newburyport, MA, 17 October 2004. Photo by Brad Carlson.