What is a Whip-poor-will?

It dawned on me yesterday in the truck that a lot of country songs refer to the sound of the Whip-poor-will. 
I thought they were singing about the wind through some kind of a tree...like a Willoe Tree. 

So today I looked it up...

    A Whip-poor-will is a bird! 

Who knew?

I found this on a Cornell website :

Whip-poor-will (Caprimulgus vociferus)

Cool fact: Like the owl, the Whip-poor-will is a night hunter. But while an owl hunts primarily by sound, the large-eyed Whip-poor-will finds its prey by sight. Thus, the Whip-poor-will is most active at twilight, dawn, and on moonlit nights.

Cool....right?

You learned something today...yeah...