Following on from a dawn chorus walk and Redstart Ramble, last Saturday was a nightjar walk at Sherwood Forest National Nature Reserve. I met Nottinghamshire County Council ranger Claire Watson and 20 people in the car park at 9 pm and we headed off into the forest and evening.
Nightjars have specialist requirements about where they live in the forest, liking areas of heather heath and young woodland, especially birch scrub or young conifer plantations. We went to an area of birch scrub, which ticks all the boxes for a nightjar’s ideal home – a layer of birch leaves and twigs on the ground for their nest – a simple depression in the ground and the birds are well camouflaged with their cryptic plumage that blends in with the mottled brown background. The birch scrub and nearby oaks are good for moths that they eat. Nightjars are most active at dusk and dawn, behaviour called crepuscular - what a delicious word to roll in your mouth!
We arrived at our destination at 9.30 pm and stood in anticipation – would they show? I’d heard and seen birds a couple of days before and was anxious that they’d perform for the group, some of whom hadn’t seen a nightjar before. Woodcocks provided a support act with birds flying over, giving their squeaky call, a tawny owl was yodelling away in the distance and bats flitted amongst the trees.
Walk through the area in daytime and there is no sign of the bird, well-hidden in the landscape. But for a brief window of opportunity as dusk descends, the landscape is transformed by this bird as its eerie mechanical song drifts across the clearing, a most unbird-like sound, and a shadow bird wings its way across the fading light of the skyline.
Then that magic moment - a female flew past in front of us and a few minutes later a male started churring. We all saw the female in flight a few times and heard two males churring in the clearing so a successful evening and a pleasure to share it with everyone on the walk.
Nightjars are fantastic birds only present with us a few months of the year. Someone on the walk asked me if the nightjar was a British bird that winters in Africa, or an African bird that spends the summer here. Excellent question and the answer is both. We need to work across continents with our BirdLife International partners to ensure it has a successful future. To find out more about the work we do to help migrant birds and how you can help please have a look at the Birds without Borders Project.
It is also a symbol of the principles of landscape-scale conservation - More, Better, Bigger and Connected . In Sherwood Forest, we are working with partners to ensure that there is sufficient habitat of suitable quality (improving sites and creating new ones), and making sites bigger and closer to each other, as shown by research on nightjar habitat.
Nightjar territory at dusk