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Common Poorwills remain uncommon and local in Saskatchewan. A cryptic and largely nocturnal species, most records are of calling birds in the Cypress Hills region in both Centre and West Blocks of the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, which remains a well-known hotspot for the species in the province. A single bird was heard in the Great Sandhills southeast of Leader in 2018, an area that was not well surveyed due to the lack of public roads, but has the potential to yield more Common Poorwill records. At Pine Cree Regional Park near Eastend, a lone bird was heard calling in both 2018 and 2019. In 2021, a bird was detected on a recording made in an adjacent square. In Grasslands National Park, a nest containing two eggs was found on 12 August 2021, representing the only confirmed instance of breeding made during the atlas.

Excerpts Adapted from the Birds of Saskatchewan:

The Common Poorwill is noted for its distinctive call. Individuals carrying radio-transmitters at a variety of locations in both their summer and winter ranges, under natural conditions, exhibit daily torpor on a regular basis. It is the only bird known to spend long periods during winter completely inactive (Brigham 1992, Kissner and Brigham 1993, Csada and Brigham 1994a, Woods and Brigham 2004, Brigham et al. 2006). Common Poorwills breed from the southern interior of British Columbia and extreme southwestern Saskatchewan south to Baja California and Guanajuato, Mexico.

Common Poorwills inhabit open, grassy, or shrubby areas in arid or semi-arid regions of western North America. They likely benefited from logging in Cypress Hills; numbers have declined since those operations ceased in the early 1990s (Csada and Brigham 1994b). Nesting habitat differs from that used by Whip-poor-wills, which usually nest in open woodlands.

The Common Poorwill is an uncommon and local summer resident in extreme southwestern Saskatchewan (Macdonald et al. 2003), found mainly on the open hillsides and forest edges in the West Block of Cypress Hills IP, where nesting was confirmed in 1983 (Sutherland 1984). An estimated 30 male Poorwills were resident in the West Block in 1991 (Kalcounis et al. 1992); others were present in the Great Sand Hills and along the lower Frenchman River where Elliott (1966) had found them in 1965.

Original text by R. Mark Brigham. Text adapted by Daniel J. SawatzkyL'Engoulevent de Nuttall reste rare et localisé en Saskatchewan. Espèce cryptique et essentiellement nocturne, la plupart des observations concernent des oiseaux chantant dans la région des collines Cypress, dans les blocs central et ouest du parc interprovincial des Cypress Hills, qui reste un lieu de prédilection bien connu pour cette espèce dans la province. Un seul individu a été entendu dans les Great Sandhills, au sud-est de Leader, en 2018. Cette zone n'a pas été suffisamment étudiée en raison du manque de routes publiques, mais elle pourrait potentiellement fournir davantage d'observations d'Engoulevents de Nuttall. Un oiseau solitaire a été entendu chanter au parc régional Pine Cree, près d'Eastend, en 2018 et 2019. En 2021, un individu a été détecté sur un enregistrement réalisé dans une parcelle adjacente. Dans le parc national des Prairies, un nid contenant deux oeufs a été découvert le 12 août 2021, ce qui constitue la seule nidification confirmée durant la période couverte par l'atlas.

LeeAnn M. Latremouille

Recommended citation: Latremouille, L. M. 2025. Common Poorwill in Latremouille, L. M., S. L. Van Wilgenburg, C. B. Jardine, D. Lepage, A. R. Couturier, D. Evans, D. Iles, and K. L. Drake (eds.). 2025. The Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Saskatchewan, 2017-2021. Birds Canada. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan https://sk.birdatlas.ca/accounts/speciesaccount.jsp?sp=COPO&lang=en [14 Nov 2025]