Has anyone here created nesting habitat for Night hawks?

[31j20b3]

I miss night hawks. When I was a kid my neighborhood was full of them and also chimney swifts

There was a dairy building at the end of my street. Large flat gravel covered roof perfect for them, and also two chimneys from the engines they ran for whatever they needed...

I'm prepared to put a flat roof onto one of my farm sheds that sits up against my woodlot, and cover it with pea-gravel, but I'm wondering if a 10ft by 10ft area would attract them.

My last project didn't go to well, yet. Back in the 90's the bank of the road-cut hosted bank swallows, but years of feral plant growth cut it off from the swallows. I opened it up and have kept it open for several years, but so far no burrows.

I'd like to have better success with night hawks

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Here's a series of videos I have watched over the years, where a guy built a 5 acre pond, stocked it/etc., lots of

things done to the pond, really neat. I think you'll get some hints, etc. from watching them ... me, I just enjoy watching.

Adding 3,000 Live Crawfish to the 5 Acre Pond!
YouTubeBamaBass

Exploring the 5 Acre Pond in a Glass Bottom Kayak! (Glowing LED Lights)
YouTubeBamaBass

Adding 12,000 Fish to the 5 Acre Pond!

[31j20b3]

2. 2 THings, My experience is Nighthawks aren't tightly linked to ponds

Ponds are nice for many reasons, mostly because water is tremendously attractive to all wild things.

But ponds in Wisconsin are problematic. It's difficult to get permits to create them where they have not existed for thousands of years. And that is because the habitats I do control, have special interest to the DNR.

On my property I have wetland with seasonal water saturation. Thats a problem as that habitat isn't much supported by landowners over the last hunded years. . A pond is a thing that's attractive for many reasons, a wet area that is a not-pond that is too wet to drive across much of the year is not of much interest. To wet to graze and and not wet enough to swim in or ice-skate on.

Complicating that, on my wetland I have small populations of a native iris which is rare in my area. I also have sedge; sedge meadows are the most threatened habitat in the county I live in, and with some effort I could have one of the largest in a radius of 10-15 miles. Sedge meadows are generally threatened throughout the southern part of the state. But they aren't my interest, because after you get rid of woody plants it's largely a hands-off and let it do what it does sort of thing.

In pursuing my interests I've got to satisfy the species I want to attract and amplify, while not bucking the Dept of Natural Resources over-all management rules.

What I want to do is to encourage some more species of insectivorous birds. I"ve got many such species that are active in daylight. But I don't have those that are active in the quiet semi-light of early morning and late sunset. 65 years ago was living in a small town with those birds in my summer evenings. I saw them by the dozens every evening... NIghthawks, Whipoorwills. Chimney-swifts swirling in the growing dark held my attention more than The Flintstones and Bugs Bunny. I'm not sure I can ever get to that, but I'd really like to see a few of them again.

So I'm interested in anyone's experience that actually attracted such birds.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. Nice interests in what you have developed, as well as the many interests you have in your property too.

The soil I have is rather porous, and we have numerous small springs in my area, so rather than develop more ponds, more woodlands in my area, I kept my area more in pasture as it seems to attract more critters considering that most of my property is woodland (1/2 woods, the other half pasture, not for hay or anything like that, just 'wild pastures', which I have found peasants, quail, critters like this). And of course the all invasive deer everywhere (we're almost right on top of a state forest, so no hunting is allowed, etc.).