Many thanks to our volunteers for helping with this year's Nightjar surveys at Broadwater and Tudeley; approximately 35 different people participated across the 4 surveys, which was an excellent turnout! I've scrutinised and compared the maps from each survey, as well as speaking to several of you for further clarification, and have determined results as follows for number of churring males:
Broadwater - 14
Eastern Heath (7)
Northern Heath (3)
Western Heath (4)
Tudeley - 5
Heathland Ridge (3)
Oaky Heath (2)
I looked specifically for records of churring happening from different males at the same time, or that were of a far enough distance apart to make a reasonable likelihood that churring was coming from different males rather than the same bird moving around.
Interpretation both on the ground and retrospectively using the maps wasn't easy, Nightjars will usually hold quite large territories of 6-10+ha, so I did have this in mind when coming to a conclusion. I appreciate though that territories can overlap, and that not all Nightjars will be settled into a territory, and so could be recorded in closer proximity to other birds while moving around.
The results as they stand give record numbers for both Broadwater and Tudeley, where the previous highest counts were 11 and 4 respectively, so Nightjar appear to have had a good year this year!
By Phil Henderson