20 years ago, I lived with my young family in an old wooden
house, known as “the Point House,” at the very tip of the then-wild island of
Providenciales. The house was old, the wood sun-baked, and the yard was filled
with the gnarled trunks and branches of coastal trees that told a tale of
centuries of struggle against the elements of sun, sea and wind. Beyond the
yard was the beach, so a short walk down a stony path took us to our own little
white sand and turquoise sea paradise. At that time, the water was alive with
living sand dollars, sea stars and molluscs of various persuasions.
At land’s end, a relatively deep but narrow channel divided
Providenciales from the completely untouched islands of the Little Water Cay
and Mangrove Cay. Those small islands were and are today Protected Areas that
have been deeded over in perpetuity to those who rightfully own the land, Turks
and Caicos rock iguanas and an array of herons, sandpipers, stilts, plovers and
terns.
In the early summer months, as seasonal rains collected in
the boggy roots and peat of Mangrove Cay, and mosquitoes, sandflies and their
insect kin exploded in a frenzy of reproductive bliss, our island paradise home
became a living hell. The Point House
was directly downwind from Mangrove Cay, and insects don’t observe the
irrelevant boundaries of land.
In the first year of our residence, we thought we had
reached our capacity to cope with the itching. Then one early evening, as we
sat in the living room clawing at our flesh, a flock of hundreds of birds flew
in to the yard. These birds had the body language of swallows, but they were
much bigger, swooping and diving in a display of impressive acrobatics. At times as they swooped towards the screened
porch of the house, we thought they would crash, but they veered off at the
last minute, vocalizing a strange creaky call, “karikidik-karikidik-karikidik.”
We were mesmerized.
After the first visit of the Antillean nighthawks, we
noticed our habitat became more liveable once again. The mosquito population
plummeted, and life resumed its normal sedate pace. Every night of mosquito
season, the nighthawks visited the Point House, and they became our most-beloved
birds, their creaky song was the blissful sound of relief.
Over the years, in my ramblings across the wild places of
the Turks and Caicos, I have stumbled across an occasional nighthawk or two,
literally. Their mottled colouring perfectly matches them to the stony
substrate they nest on. Laying one or two mottled eggs directly on the ground
in a small stone depression, the bird then sits on her eggs and blends into the
earth. When disturbed, the female fly away from her nest and pretend she has a
broken wing to distract you from her eggs. This creative adaptation has allowed
nighthawks to survive millennia against predation pressures.
But the little birds that nest vulnerably on the ground don’t
stand a chance against the worst predator of all. The north-eastern shores of Providenciales
are now lined with luxury homes and the mosquitoes controlled by chemical
means. I had been back for a week before I saw my first nighthawk, but rather
than flying in a group of hundreds of noisy kin, this nighthawk flew silently,
alone across the evening sky.
Because the nighthawk’s habits are largely unknown, we don’t
know where they spend their winters, for example, it is difficult to know
exactly what is causing their decline. Some believe that the chemicals used to
control mosquitoes are to blame, others point to the nighthawk’s nesting behaviour.
An ingenious tactic of pretending your wing is broken doesn’t stand a chance
against a bulldozer.
For now, I watch the few I see with gratitude and remorse,
and I hope that theirs is not another journey to extinction. Their lone calls sing
into eternity like a requiem.
