From Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot” to Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” to H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror”, whip-poor-wills have often been a dark omen that haunted classic American #horror #fiction.

But as the birds’ populations have declined by a horrifying 70%, they’re also seeing a near-extinction in books and movies:
theconversation.com/the-whip-p…
#wildlife #fiction #books #Bookstodon

The whip-poor-will has been an omen of death for centuries − what happened to this iconic bird of American horror?

A new film adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot’ swaps in an owl for the book’s haunting whip-poor-wills, showing how species loss is also tied into cultural loss.

^{The Conversation}