Nightjar and Garden Warbler

I have not posted for a week or so partly because I popped down to Spain for a few days and partly because the wet weather on my return has not been too conducive to birding. Plenty of rain was still falling today but I managed to avoid the showers this morning and had a walk in the Forêt de Belaire after first checking out the plains near the eoliens.
It was only 11C at 8.30 pm so I watched a solitary stone curlew from the comfort of the car (and with the heated seat fully on as the car hadn't yet warmed up). It was DH Lawrence who said that you never see a bird which feels sorry for itself, and the stone curlew certainly appeared more stoical than me.
Shortly afterwards I passed by the bio farm and heard a red backed shrike calling from a hedge that had been used for nesting last year but I saw neither him nor the yellowhammer which was singing nearby.
The forest was wet underfoot but everything was green and springlike. On the warbler front, lots of chiffchaffs were singing along with a few blackcaps and whitethroats but it was little time before I tracked down the repetitive trill of the Bonelli's warblers. There was no sound of wood warblers but the disappointment was mitigated by hearing and then briefly watching a garden warbler, the first for me this year (and very possibly the last as they are none too common).
Short-toed treecreepers were surprisingly common, however, and some were carrying insects back to their young. Occasionally a nuthatch called and for a few moments I watched a bright male redstart.
Although a male bullfinch was calling in the same area that I saw him last time, I could not catch sight of him before he finally moved further away. The noisiest birds by far were the cuckoos and orioles and I occasionally caught flashes of them without really trying.
I had heard my first nightjar of the Spring from a wood behind my house yesterday evening but a louder and closer bird briefly churred as I returned to where I had parked my vehicle. I will make an evening to that location soon.

For the record and for those who might want to wander from Charente, the brief Pyrenean visit gave me a few new birds for 2016 including griffon and Egyptian vultures, wrynecks, blue rock thrush, rock sparrow, dipper, crag martin, scops owl, pied flycatcher, chough, raven and booted eagle