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White-throated Nightjars are medium-sized nocturnal predators. Their plumage is highly cryptic. They are primarily dark grey-brown, with rufous and grey streaking and barring. They have small white spots on both sides of the throat. While perched on the ground, the dark-grey wing tips tend to stick out conspicuously. The eyes are dark-brown and have the typical, unusual form of other nightjars. The small, downward-curved bill is dark-grey.

Twitcher's tip

They are distinguished from Spotted Nightjars by their more dark-grey general appearance, also in-flight, when their finely barred underparts show. In-flight the main distinction between the two species is that White-throatted Nightjars do not have prominent white spots on their outer primaries, but more prominent white patches on either side of the throat.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the White-throated Nightjar is available HERE .

White-throated Nightjars occur in Australia, eastern Indonesia, New Guinea and on the Solomon Islands.

Nominate race "mystacalis" breeds only in Australia and migrate to the continent from the North via the Torres Strait. In Australia they populate only the eastern coastal fringe and adjacent Great Dividing Range in an up to 300 km wide area, from the eastern half of Cape York peninsula, QLD, all the way down to about Melbourne, VIC. Occasionally, they can be found a bit farther inland, on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range.

White-throated Nightjars have a preference for (mostly dry) forest and woodland, especially areas with lots of litter (leaves, twigs, bark), which they use for camouflage.

Race "mystacalis"

We first found at least 3 White-throated Nightjars, race "mystacalis", in Deriah Aboriginal Area in February 2014. After their winter absence, White-throated Nightjars, race "mystacalis", returned to Deriah Aboriginal Area in October 2014, when they were heard calling from two locations in a densely wooded gully, close to where they had been found the previous season. In November one White-throated Nightjar was seen in-flight and visually identified at the same location. Since then they are heard in the same area basically every year during the breeding season.

In March 2017, late in the season, a White-throated Nightjar, race "mystacalis", was heard calling at Dandry Gorge AA, in the southern Pilliga scrub.

In December 2017 a White-throated Nightjar, race "mystacalis", was found at Timmallallie NP, in the Pilliga scrub.

M. Adam-Cross reports having heard White-throated Nightjars, race "mystacalis", calling at night during spring and summer in Yarramundi, NSW, for many years.