The Nightjar

I was showing one of my masons my bird book for Africa, and several of
the birds that I had recently identified. We looked at shrikes and
herons and ducks and other birds, and he recognized a number of them.
When I flipped to the page of Nightjars, I commented that I often see
these sleeping on the runway at night. These birds like to fly around at
dusk. During mating season, the males fly around with a long streamer
off of the trailing edge of both wings. We identify them by silhouette
usually.

He replied, "Ahhh, those birds are very dangerous. My parents taught us
that we must be very careful about these birds. It's the problem of
their eggs. If a horse steps on the eggs, the mother bird will return
and see horse prints. That is no problem. But if the mother bird sees a
human footprint, and if it was that person who broke the eggs, the
mother bird will come for revenge. She will bite the children in your
family and they will all die. That's what our parents taught us."