What the Whip-poor-will Teaches Us About Forest Management

The Grand Prairie Bird Alliance and the Illinois Wesleyan University Biology Department will sponsor a public presentation about bird ecology on March 30, 2026. The presentation will be held at 7 p.m. in room C101 at the Center for Natural Science (CNS), 201 Beecher Street, Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU), Bloomington. Parking is available in the lot just north of the CNS on Beecher Street.

Description: Holly Coates, a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois, will talk about “What the Whip-poor-will Teaches Us About Forest Management.” Eastern Whip-poor-wills are nocturnal, ground-nesting birds with have a distinctive call that is sometimes repeated for hours on end by males during the breeding season. Unfortunately, whip-poor-will populations have declined substantially over the past several years. As Midwestern forests become denser and more uniform, they lose the open, complex structure whip-poor-wills need to forage and move. Holly’s talk highlights how forest management influences whip-poor-will abundance and persistence, showing that restoring structural diversity can help support this declining and iconic bird.