Nightjar a-glow

There are some things which no matter how much time is spent, or how many hours absorbed in a task, or how many times a plan is hatched and re-enacted, the end product is zero. Though to be fair although the end product in this case was brilliant, capturing that brilliance on a camera was less than perfect. I'm talking of the European nightjar, Caprimulgus europaeus.

I've watched nightjar for many years now and they never cease to amaze me. For many of those years my preferred location was a well known site on the Mendip Hills in Somerset. Close to twenty five years ago now I visited this site with an excellent naturalist and BBC Natural History Unit cameraman, I was also friends with his partner who joined us. This was my first encounter with the fern-owl or goatsucker, just two of the many country names for this bird. In those days it was deemed acceptable to flick a white cloth in the air to attract a male nightjar intent on booting out any interloper to its territory. And we did just that mimicking the white tail feathers of the bird, though today this is very much frowned upon. However that flick and clap elicited what had been the very best and closest encounter with these deeply fascinating birds. Until that is last weekend which I'll come to.

Another site in the northern part of Somerset provides astonishing nightjar flying and churring but to be honest as it has a precipitous climb back down from the site in pitch darkness it is not one of my favourite locations. And so during the pandemic when we were prevented from going out I did a little research. Which brought me to the Quantock Hills in West Somerset.

I'm not going to name the site as somehow I feel the nightjar there will benefit being left to get on with their own world, though I later learnt that regular nightjar-evenings do happen here. 

It was early last year when Mrs Wessex Reiver and I did a reconnaissance visit arriving two or three hours before sunset. I had some basic instructions but this is a huge site of moorland, woodland, steep valley and everything in-between. With a picnic in the rucksack we wandered about the myriad of pathways aslant the hill. Nothing looked suitable in terms of habitat until we stumbled across a picnic bench. Unpacking the egg and cress sandwiches and ripe apple for desert it struck me while sitting here  "this looks as likely a spot as anywhere".  In the absence of a better idea we made use of the picnic bench and waited as the sun began to set. Half an hour after sunset we heard a brief churring at some distance, then followed by the contact 'choo-weep' call. There it was again. Walking towards the churring it became louder and clearer. We stopped, the churring stopped then as I'd hoped a clap-clap sound, another 'choo-weep' call and behind us from whence we'd just walked a male nightjar flew over the path silhouetted against the sky and away to churr at some distance. Success.

Now knowing where they are to be found we returned three or four times last year and on each visit the same behaviour happened in the same area in roughly the same sequence.

First there's a low volume short churr just before the sun sets. This is brief and often not repeated. It is possibly the male and female contact churring if they are brooding on the nest scrape, pair bonding as they swap positions. To be honest I don't know for sure. Nothing of real note happens until around 25 minutes after sunset.  Suddenly as if a switch is flicked on a churr just begins and lasts for minutes. Then it will stop with a whoop-whee-whoop call like an old fashioned turntable losing power mid track, followed by wing claps and then silence. I now know enough at this site to anticipate this is the male about to take flight. Mostly from the same area, over our heads and into some isolated trees some way off. From here churring can continue for ten minutes, before again a clap clap, whoop-whee-whoop and if we're lucky we'll see him disappear in flight towards the valley. 

That valley is interesting as on most of the occasions we visit we can hear up to half a dozen churring nightjar all around. Not all the time and of course some may be moving about, but certainly a small number are here. On one fine, warm and still evening I took a parabolic microphone to the site and gained some useful audio of the churring, mixed with the bells ringing in the village below. Quite atmospheric as the bells struck eleven.

On another evening last year unlike Coleridge who was disturbed by a Person from Porlock, we met a dogwalker from Bridgwater. A somewhat surreal experience talking to a stranger in near darkness with nightjar churring about all around us. He was visiting his mother and knew the area well from childhood. He mentioned that in years past the males would lek up on the high moor after leaving their territories across the Quantocks and in the valleys. I've not come across any literature of nightjar lekking but it seems plausible for this elusive and  intriguing bird as there is so much that remains unknown about them, such as the infanticide filmed on the BBC's Springwatch this year. A scientific if gruesome first. That lekking however would be something to see and while we had planned to try and see this this year other needs got in the way around the time of the nightjars arrival in mid May. I fear it is too late now in the season.

Which brings me to 2023. I wrote of our first visit over the May Spring Bank Holiday on this site a month or so back. Our second visit in early June wasn't brilliant for nightjar activity. There was the usual churring and wing clapping but within five minutes all activity moved onto the valley and out of sight. However that did bring one treat in finding a glow-worm. I'd not seen one shining for years, not since Mrs Wessex Reiver moved from Wiltshire where they were common near her home shining brightly between the railway ballast at Little Bedwyn. Interestingly there, and presumably elsewhere, they switched their lights off as a train approached and only relit them once it had long passed.

The latest visit was after a hot and bothersome humid day last weekend. Even driving to the site at 9pm the car thermometer showed 22oC. Our arrival coincided with the sunset at 9.30pm, but it was still very light. Moments later we were at our usual vantage spot.  Only five minutes or so later the first churring, that then stopped. A few minutes later more churring this time accompanied by the whoop-whee-whoop call.. And then over our heads like a large flapping bat the male flew low over to some often used trees behind us. Churring began. For the following half an hour we were entertained by two nightjar churring and changing position in a wide figure of eight pattern. I'm not sure whether it was the warm weather or the stillness of the night but these birds were very active and kept us on our toes. Brief glimpses of them flying between churring posts were regular. One even perched on a dead tree in a perfect nightjar silhouette.  We walked a little nearer but as it flew off it was joined by another nightjar (by now it was too dark to see more than the shapes) and the pair flitted and flapped up and down the ride only a few feet above our heads. Not since that first sighting on the Mendips twenty five years ago have I experienced such a close fly by of a nightjar, and never for so long. In all this activity (I think there could have been three individuals here) lasted for over 45 minutes before they all headed towards the valley. Even as we walked to our valley view-point another nightjar flew over us. Simply magical and we were surprised on checking our phones that it was now well past eleven o'clock.

We didn't want to leave while the churring in the valley was continuing and churring behind our viewpoint was also continuing. Eventually though fatigue and a 30 mile drive to come made us think of heading home.

It was once back home that I looked at a couple of films I'd taken on my mobile phone, mostly taken to record the sound. One however showed a very brief fly past of a nightjar that I'd not noticed at the time, very much blink and you'll miss it. But another film had a longer flight I'd seen but thought I'd failed to capture. The two images above are stills taken from the film. It is hard to see in the first one so in the second one I've circled the nightjar (that feint black speck) and its direction of flight. This second clip is lovely as I've got the churring, the calling, the wing flap and then the flight, ending in the bird perching out of sight and calling 'choo-weep'.

Nothing matches being there in the darkness listening to this astonishing bird going about its business, but the films help me remember the behavioural sequence which is repeated time and time again. We should be able to return a couple more times before they head back to Africa and I can't wait. I never ever tire of standing in a plantation after dark and experiencing this phenomenal bird. I just need a camera that can match that experience too.