night bird

plural night birds · alternative nightbird

1. A bird that is active in the night; a nocturnal bird.

   Far out in the scrubs a solitary nightbird was calling.

   2002, Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country, Allen & Unwin, published 2003, page 290

   1 more example

   Some night-bird, belike, or a sea-gull squalling below the headland.

   1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 39

2. figurativelyA human denizen of night.

   1 more example

   Bradley assenting, went with him into an early public-house, haunted by unsavoury smells of musty hay and stale straw, where returning carts, farmers' men, gaunt dogs, fowls of a beery breed, and certain human night-birds fluttering home to roost, were solacing themselves after their several manners; and where not one of the night-birds hovering about the sloppy bar failed to discern at a glance in the passion-wasted night-bird with respectable feathers, the worst night-bird of all.

   1864 May – 1865 November, Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1865, →OCLC