Nightjars

A chance mention of nightjars during a conversation yesterday afternoon reminded me that I had not made the effort to locate any this year so I set off late in the evening for my annual fix of this curious migrant.

The visit was to a spot in a nearby forest where I have seen and heard nightjars many times before. It was a little later in the evening than usual, 10.30 rather than 9.30 but the sky was clear and the moon full. As soon as I turned off the car engine I heard the distinctive sustained churring with its frequent changes of pitch but I had to walk a little down the track before a bird appeared. It glided and swooped low above my head so I assume I was close to a nest but it performed no wing clapping nor made any calls. This may be the result of it being so late in the evening or maybe a little later in the season than usual, the courtship routines now being over. As I drove back I heard several other individuals in the same forest but much closer to my home churring away.

Earlier in the day I was treated to the unusual sight of a nightingale out in the open. The familiar experience of this bird is of its musical throbbing emanating from deep within a bush but this one was perched on a telephone wire and made a few feeding sorties into the field below. It displayed the same bright chestnut plumage of the Cetti's warbler (another bird which is far more often heard than seen) which I came across by the Bonnieure about thirty minutes earlier.

On Monday I had a brief walk along the track by the Charente near Luxé. The damp meadows here look perfect for the elusive and increasingly rare corncrake but I heard no trace of their presence. A consolation was a little egret feeding in the flooded area under the new viaduct and my first willow warbler of the year in a bush beside the track.