Best Intentions

 

 

We have reached Autumn. It is raining. I'm standing next to a stone - Triscombe Stone high in the Quantock Hills. The date; Wednesday, September 2nd. It is the first time I have needed to wear waterproofs since mid May. What a summer!!

 

The incessant heat over recent months curtailed my project to visit all of Dorset Wildlife Trust's nature reserves in a twelvemonth. That, and an unbelievably busy summer. Thus, with the project amended to 'I shall visit all these reserves in all good time' I'm back to general blogging. 

 

What isn't obvious in that image above was the near zero visibility on the highest point of the Quantocks - Will's Neck. And wind. And rain. That weather came as quite a shock after months of dry, sun drenched days.

 

 

 

I'd come up here with Mrs Wessex Reiver to recce a walk due to take place the following Sunday. I wasn't leading it, that was being expertly managed by the Edward Thomas Fellowship. But, despite visiting this Natural Landscape regularly, this end of the Quantocks is lessser known to me. I'd heard the views were stunning. I'll take their word for it.

 

 

 

However, Sunday arrived, accompanied by warm sunshine. And views. They are quite something. Thirty or so people took part in this organised morning walk with readings from Edward Thomas's canon of prose and poetry. Followed by lunch at the Rising Sun in West Bagborough. Later, myself and another lady ascended nearby Cotherstone Hill, destination point of Thomas's 'Grave of Winter' from his book In Pursuit of Spring. For both of us this was a first, and for me I wondered why I'd never visited this hill before. On that clear day we could see for tens of miles in every direction, our arrival heralded by a pair of ravens playfully sky-writing their own poetry in the keen 'Islands of England' updraft.

 

 

 

 It was a perfect ending to a wonderful day. Summer has ended, yet the creative energy to write is returning accompanying the shorter day length. I do enjoy long summer days, less so the heat of 2026. 

Silence on the hills

Unusually I am writing this while sitting having my lunch looking at this view. Mostly I would note something of interest while out, then when home write it up. 

The silence however is noticeable. 

I'm on the Quantock Hills, only three weeks since my last visit. Then at the beginning of May the birdsong was astonishing. Everywhere the orchestra of skylark, stonechat, linnet, wren and meadow pipit provided the avian-symphony. A host of solo artists, pied flycatcher, willow warbler, cuckoo, raven, song thrush and so on, added to the performance. It was incredible. 

Today I've only heard meadow pipit, stonechat and a single swift. No skylark, no whitethroat, no Dartford warbler, even the cuckoo is a distant faint half-call somewhere over the valley. There is plenty of other wildlife to see but the difference those three weeks have made is quite noticeable.

Of course the reason is, I sincerely hope, that territories have been decided, birds paired up and eggs are in the nest or chicks hatched with parents run ragged feeding them. There's no real need to sing loudly if the home is happy and content. 

This exceptionally dry spring will have both brought forward breeding and shortened the breeding phase. It's only a hope that species reliant on insects for their growing chicks find enough of a supply in this dry weather. We will find out in due course when the surveys are collated nationwide.

There's plenty to see and do often course. Day flying moths are plentiful, green hairstreak too. This year is also I think the small heath year, they're everywhere. In some ways the silence in the hills as I write this is a joyous experience, a balm to the extraordinary racket humanity unleashes on the environment, such as the aircraft now passing over at a great height. As long as that is all it is, a temporary cessation of birdsong during breeding I'll sleep well tonight.

Speaking of which I'd best be on my way, a downhill three miles back to the car. The silence will no doubt accompany me. Temporarily I hope.

Chasing Dartford Warblers

 

I believe every naturalist must have a modicum of madness running through their veins. If like me you began in short trousers simply observing what is close to home, before too long you now find yourself wearing long trousers venturing far and wide indulging in a sheer obsession. If this strikes a chord then you'll understand what follows. 

While half an hours drive from home, I now consider the Quantock Hills (or Natural Landscape to give it its new and now correct title) one of my local patches. Visiting two or three times a month throughout the year I've got to know this special landscape well. There is however, to be truthful, an awful lot more to learn about this magical area. 

Last summer at around midnight I met a chap out walking his dog. I'd been watching nightjars with my wife and we were just thinking of heading home, when this chap emerged out of the darkness with his labrador. He was from nearby Williton.  We chatted about the nightjar routes, he mentioned where the males lek, which valleys they move between at different times of the night and then just casually threw into the conversation, "come earlier in the day and you can watch the Dartford warblers just over there before heading off to view the nightjar at dusk." With those words he and his dog disappeared into the night, leaving me in a thoughtful mood.

I'd wandered this landscape for years but had never seen a Dartford warbler, and to confirm my ignorance had not realised they were here. I'd seen Dartford warblers many times in Dorset, but never here. A mental note was lodged in my mind and returning to the car we drove home.

Moving the story on by a few months, having retired in March this year I have what can be described as a need to focus on regular activity to maintain my identity and self worth. In other words I've a lot of time to fill so don't waste it. As any lifelong naturalist will tell you, we rarely do.

The sun was up, I had an empty day, and recalling the area pointed out to me last summer, what better then than popping to the Quantocks and look for a Dartford warbler. 

This was at the end of March. On that first visit I saw, absolutely nothing. Plenty of other birds, skylark were everywhere, linnet, wren, meadow pipit, and stonechats and dunnock seemingly performing on every gorse bush. Which proved a problem. These latter two species while not sounding or looking like a Dartford warbler, were providing me with a lot of distant activity to check as they flitted between gorse bushes or sang a sub song which made me think "What's that?" After three hours walking nearly five miles in ever decreasing circles I gave up. It had been a brilliant day, but one tinged with an empty feeling.

The following week I returned. In the mean times some internet research had revealed that after suffering a bit in the 2010, 2011 winters and the Beast from the East in 2018, the recent mild winters have bolstered the population to 68 pairs in 2024. Given the Quantocks only covers about 100 square kilometres, they'll be easy to find. Won't they? On this second visit I headed to a more mature stand of gorse I'd seen the previous week thinking it looked a likely habitat. The sun was hidden, and the wind was up, both added to the sense of isolation up there, a feeling heightened as after spending nearly four hours on the hill I saw no-one. I didn't see a Dartford warbler either. This was proving difficult. Actually this exemplifies what a lot of nature watching is like, hard slog if you don't have local up-to-date knowledge. But in many ways that's half the fun, the quest.

By now the sun was emerging so I sat for a while on a fallen tree with a mug of tea from my flask. My mind cannoned thoughts across its now retiree neurological network. I know the Dartford warblers are here, the habitat is right, the landscape is perfect, the other indicator species, stonechat, linnet even wren are here in good numbers, but no Dartford warblers. Plan B - and an option I don't normally use. I came home and scoured social media. One account I have followed for a long while popped up "my best ever Dartford warbler image last weekend on the Quantocks". In one of the replies to that posting a specific location was mentioned. I knew exactly where it was. If you read this, thank you Carl Bovis.

Three days later I found myself on the hills again, this time with my secret weapon, Mrs Wessex Reiver, who is very good at spotting things. We tramped up hill and down dale, criss-crossing this area mentioned in the Instagram post. A malady and depression was beginning to grip me when Mrs Wessex Reiver shouted, "Is that it?" Bingo! A dark miniature lollipop sped away from me in an undulating flight and into a dense stand of gorse. No mistaking that outline, no mistaking that flight. And then it called. 

Collins Bird Guide describes the call as 'distinctive' - a drawn out harsh chaihhrr sometimes with an extra note chaihhrr-chr. Which is tremendous. I agree it is distinctive but has for me the quality of someone quickly scratching their fingernails down a chalkboard whilst dancing a tango. Once my ear hears it I remember it, but to attempt to describe the call is fraught with interpretation misdemeanours especially alongside the aforementioned stonechat song, linnet song and now the whitethroat are also back. The calling ceased and that was it. However I'd seen one for all of two seconds, thanks to Mrs Wessex Reiver, who while chatting to a local on the way back, had it confirmed to both of us we were in the right place, but they were flighty at the moment. 

My fourth visit occurred three days later. The sun was up and a strong wind was carrying sound across the landscape. In those intervening three days many trees had greened up and hawthorn blossom was beginning to bud up. Once again I was up here on my own in my own world. Two kestrel flew along a ridge, a pair of buzzard spiralled in the wind. Everywhere stonechat and wren called and I heard the rustling of dry grass. It seemed to be coming from just meters away from me, until I realised on the other side of a combe a large herd of red deer were slowly moving through last years vegetation. Mostly hinds and young there were a couple of young stags, one with an antler missing making his head lopsided. It made for a magical sight and I counted over thirty while watching them head down the combe and over onto the next hill. So engrossed was I that I'd forgotten about the Dartford warblers.

Eventually the deer disappeared and I resumed by quest and only moments into walking along a ridge path I heard what I'd come to see. Initially I couldn't locate it until it flew off into the distance before perching on a mature gorse. Through the binoculars I had the most glorious view, for at least two seconds before it flew back and down over the ridge. I could hear it calling but to see it was impossible. I was in the right place yet again. 

Yesterday I had my fifth, and in many ways, my most successful day. Mrs Wessex Reiver was with me but went for a walk, leaving me to my birdwatching.  In all I spent eight hours on the hill, and saw some amazing wildlife as I sat for hours observing. Merlin and peregrine hunting over the moor, my first cuckoo of the year. Two common lizards fighting next to me. The whitethroats had now arrived in numbers, their calls were everywhere. Skylark, stonechat, linnet, meadow pipit, wren and dunnock. A red kite drifted over, still a fairly uncommon sight in Somerset. And three Dartford warblers.

One Dartford warbler flew right in front of me, perched then disappeared over the hill. In another location a pair flew between gorse and out of sight, only their calling revealing they were still in the area. I did a little mental arithmetic, with the three today and those seen earlier in the month I'd seen five individuals, possibly six. However none of them stayed still long enough to allow for an image.

I'll leave you then with a terrible photograph of a whitethroat, in the same habitat the Dartford warblers were. I wonder if I'll ever photograph a Dartford warbler?  Does it matter if I never do? Probably not, but in this world of social media imagery, a picture counts for more than a thousand words. More likes of course.

It seems the chap Mrs Wessex Reiver chatted to a couple of days ago was correct in his summation "they're flighty - best to come when they're feeding the young then you'll have a reference point to observe where the nest is". Sound words of advice there. I'll be back. But will they be here to see?

Bicknoller in 1883

 In June 1883* the writer Richard Jefferies visited Somerset. There is a little confusion as to why he visited Somerset during the long days of summer given the main work published the following year was a book on red deer, with unsurprisingly the title of Red Deer. This now classic study of deer was a detailed natural history of the landscape red deer roamed over with meticulously researched methods of hunting and the movement and ecology of red deer. Which is why visiting in the summer is a little confusing given the deer hunting season happens during the winter months. To gather the information needed for his book Jefferies spent a few days in Exford with the master of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds Arthur Heal. 

I don't wish to go into more detail about the book, as there are better sources than me. You can read more of Jefferies 'Somerset Adventure' and a synopsis of the book via the Richard Jefferies Society Website. Beginning on page 54 of the Societies' Journal Number 39 – 2024

 link here

https://www.richardjefferiessociety.org/p/the-richard-jefferies-society-journal.html

My visit to the Quantock Hills this week was to begin researching locations for a maybe fanciful idea of mine of producing a Jefferies in Somerset self guided tour. He covered a large area during the 19 days he spent here, he must have never stopped. But for my visit I began, where else, at the beginning of Jefferies visit, the hamlet of Bicknoller. 

My visit coincided with a cool but beautifully sunny January day, in stark contrast with Jefferies summer visit in 1883. On my visit snowdrops were in flower along with early daffodils in St George's churchyard. It really is a peaceful place today, blackbird and great tits were calling in the neighbourhood, but in 1883 it might have been a lot noisier. We forget that when these rural communities were all about farming, a lot of the villagers would have been abroad walking to or working in the fields. Horses pulling carts would be trundling through the lanes, cattle and sheep on the hillsides, tradespeople delivering produce, even poachers at night. The rural landscape is relatively empty today but that is a recent change.

I know Bicknoller only to drive through as it is close to where we come to watch nightjars on a summers evening (no evidence Jefferies saw nightjar here, though I'd be surprised if he didn't do so). This however was the first time I'd explored the hamlet, or maybe it is a small village as it has a pub and a shop? First I walked through the churchyard, and was greeted as I entered through the gate with a riot of spring flowers, quite early considering it is only January. Rooks and jackdaw were noisily prospecting for nest sites above me as I wandered through the gravestones, not looking for anything in particular just something I like to do.

Oddly having bought a pamphlet in the church it failed to say how old it was. The historical record stated that it was a manorial chapel during the reign of Henry 3rd which at some point thereafter became a church. It must be older than that however as the yew tree hard by is reputed to be 1000 years old.

Exiting the churchyard through a gate commemorating Queen Victoria I found a little remembrance area with a few seats. From here, a flask of coffee and my copy of Red Deer by my side, I could observe the toing and froing of Church Lane. Which I have to admit was limited. Two dog walkers, a car and a post van in half an hour. Where was everyone? But I'd particularly come to see Lock's Farm, as it was in 1883. Jefferies stayed for a few days with a Mrs Thorne who leased the farmhouse and was joined by the painter J.W. North. It is not known if Jefferies knew North before visiting but as a result of this visit they became good friends. On this visit I sat quietly looking at what is now a residential house I could imagine Jefferies wandering up and down the lane making notes in his field notebook, chatting to North and hopefully enjoying the clean crisp air of West Somerset. It is known that Jefferies walked up onto the hills behind the house as he mentions Crowcombe and Will's Neck both are nearby and he was a keen walker, though by now he'd become ill with tuberculosis. His arrival at Bicknoller was after alighting from the train at Stogumber. My next destination.

Once part of the Great Western Railway Stogumber is now part of a heritage line, the West Somerset Railway. No trains are running in January but on my arrival I spent a very agreeable half an hour chatting to some of the volunteers there undertaking winter maintenance. Stogumber is around two miles from Bicknoller and how Jefferies got from the station to there is not known. Possibly he walked, possibly he was collected by a horse and cart? We don't know but I like to imagine he walked along the narrow lanes with their tall hedges enjoying a very different landscape to the one he'd left in Sussex just a few hours before.

In 1883 this building would have been the ticket office, now serving as an information point and kitchen (I was informed cream teas are a must in the summer and a new kitchen is planned for 2026). Jefferies would have seen this building, no doubt handing his ticket into the platform attendant as he left. Tangible reminders that although we're nearly 150 year after his visit, the landscape still contained clues and real connections to the past. Did North meet him at the station, pleasant introductions proceeding a friendly walk to his lodgings? All pure conjecture of course.

After a few days in Bicknoller Jefferies headed over to Exmoor staying at Exford. He also visited a number of other places including Dunster, Watchet, Minehead, Horner Wood, Holincote and Porlock  where he stayed in the Anchor Inn. Those destinations are for my next visits here. Today however I said my goodbyes to Stogumber and drove up to Crowcombe Gate where the sunshine was strong and the sense of peace exhilarating. 

* some sources quote 1882, but later research confirmed 1883.

On line version of Red Deer

https://archive.org/details/reddeera00jeffuoft

During Wind And Rain - Watching Butterflies

To badly paraphrase that well known lepidopterist Jane Austen “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a Northern man in possession of a good guide book, must be in want of a butterfly.”

I read somewhere that the reason butterfly watching was so popular in the Victorian era was partly due to the lazy hot days of summer when the well clad gentleman in linen knickerbockers (or occasionally a lady in fetching taffeta) would roam the sweet vernal grass meadows near the homestead, swishing a butterfly net with abandon while dreaming of cricket, and a return home on the Penny Farthing to an afternoon tea on the terrace, maybe with the vicar. How things have changed.

July 2023 has arrived. I look out of the window. Strong winds and grey skies with rain so heavy you could launch a boat in the resulting flood. Not ideal weather for butterfly watching then? Well, yes it is, in some ways it is perfect. 

Hodder's Combe - where the sunlit butterflies begin

As I am that Northern man of Austen's  my target butterfly for this July has been the silver washed fritillary. Before dear reader you continue with this narrative I may as well confess to having failed spectacularly to see a single silver washed fritillary all year. Stop now if your only interest is polarised in Argynnis paphia. You will read no account here of this parfumier valentino of the woodland glade. However if I may entice you further, could a white admiral and maybe a large skipper pique your interest to continue?

I drove down the M5 in Somerset, en-route to Hodder's Combe in the Quantocks. The rain was so heavy that even on the fastest setting the deluge came down quicker than the windscreen wipers could wipe the rain away. Driving half blind we crawled along a flooded motorway where, as I passed by Sedgemoor Services at steady 30mph, I thought to myself "why on earth am I doing this?" The simple answer was the weather forecast suggested rain until noon followed by glorious sunshine for the rest of the day. Given butterflies have to feed and tend to fly only when it is sunny, my thought was they'll rest up in this rain but as soon as the sun emerges they'll be on the wing. I was right, and the butterflies came in good numbers.

Comma : Can you see me?

After a three quarters of an hour walk up the Combe, during which the rain finally stopped though it remained cloudy, I was now in position. I waited no longer than five minutes, not another living soul about, it was so peaceful. The sun emerged from behind the clouds and the butterflies began flying all around me. First the meadow browns who appeared as if by magic, ten maybe twenty of them flying haphazardly with their weak flappy flight. Followed then by a number of large white strongly flying in a purposeful way and then half a dozen comma, again out on the wing enjoying the sun. As the sun intensified out came half a dozen red admiral and gatekeeper, a trio of large skipper and a single common blue flitted and flapped between all this activity heading towards a large mound of bramble. I followed and noted this large bramble patch was a meeting place for the species. As happens when watching butterflies if the sun disappeared even for a short while all the activity would end and those butterflies I'd been watching seconds earlier would simply disappear as if by silent command. When the sun returned, this activity would resume. I became absorbed by this, a special moment to be in and amongst all this activity and behaviour by insects just getting on with their life while simply ignoring my presence. A wistful thought that if I were not there they'd be doing this activity anyway. The World revolves.

I did make an interesting observation though, the role bracken (Pteridium) played in all of this emergence and disappearance. Bracken is much maligned for its invasive and tick laden properties. My observations however showed how beneficial brackens' open domed growth habit is to butterflies, to species who would not normally be associated with this fern. Many individuals landed on the highest sunniest bracken fronds and rested, wings open, stationary, simultaneously warming up and drying out before heading off and out of sight. Every species I saw there on that visit used bracken as a resting site to a greater or lesser extent, often resting there with motionless wings for minutes at a time. There is a risk to all this of course as while they are so conspicuous butterflies are more visible to predation but the benefit of being out in the open while adjacent to dense vegetation they could quickly disappear into must outweigh the risk.  In all I spent two hours here exploring what this place had to offer. Sadly the silver washed fritillary did not show though they are here and I'd recently read that brown hairstreak have been discovered here. I'll leave these species for the next time, it was after 4pm now, activity was tailing off, time I headed home.

Comma

Gatekeeper

Normal meadow brown above and a dark form male with sex bands visible below

Female large white. A little like woodpigeons which because they are common and deemed a pest are very much overlooked, though both bird and butterfly I think are stunning.

Large skipper

Red admiral above and below.

Female small white on a nettle above and on herb robert below.

That was during the week and so following my failure to see silver washed fritillary on the following Saturday I headed into the woodland area of Shapwick Heath NNR after recent reports of silver washed fritillary flying. 

This time I was taking a real punt given the weather had turned decidedly autumnal in feel, cool, torrential rain showers but now accompanied by 40-50 mph gusting winds. This weather was so out of season the Saturday Market in the nearby city of Wells, where I'd gone to first thing, had  been cancelled. Undeterred my revised plan was to venture into the most sheltered rides of the oak woodland at Shapwick and just observe what if anything appeared as and when the frequent rain showers were replaced with sunshine. 

Shapwick Heath NNR - white admiral country.

I could not have had a better afternoon. In a similar way to Hodder's Combe if the sun disappeared then the butterflies disappeared. But, when the sun did emerge the rides erupted with life. Not just butterflies but tens or even hundreds of dragonflies and damselflies, hover flies and a myriad of insects I couldn't identify. I could identify unfortunately the hundreds of mosquitoes that also flew in the sunshine, I was covered in them and their bites. A real downside here, not pleasant at all and I still bear the scars.

While frequently distracted by other insects I kept focussed on butterflies whose abundance was enhanced by energetic activity by the many species now on the wing in the strong sunlight, before it all fell quiet again as the rain returned as it often did. I was getting used to this weather related cycle. 

A very obliging brimstone which despite its bright colour blended beautifully into these oak leaves.

A beautiful but pestilent deer-fly Chrysops spp. but not sure of the exact species.

Beautifully marked gatekeeper underside (above) and a different but equally lovely gatekeeper upper wings (below). The gatekeepers were everywhere, more plentiful than meadow brown.

Peacocks were everywhere too, such oddly out of place markings in the English countryside, almost tropical in looks.

Ruddy Darter (first thought common darter but I dismissed this or maybe it is)

This southern hawker clung motionless to this honeysuckle branch for fifteen minutes or more. At first I thought it might have been dead but then on my last visit it wasn't there. There were a lot of hawker species about, a few did that spectacular thing of flying right up very close to my face and then after hovering for a while looking at me, decided I wasn't any threat - nor prey - and buzzed off.  Fascinating behaviour and I'd love to know what they see and are observing.

I'm not seeing many speckled woods at the moment. This one was one of the few found resting on a fern.

Now we're getting to the white admirals. In this cooler weather they were flying really well but unsurprisingly a slower flight and much less fidgety than when I'd last seen them a couple of weeks earlier. I'm not sure whether it was just the weather but they were also much lower down perching around head height or gliding for short distances low along the track which is a behaviour many lepidopterists look for. The image below was more typical on this visit, horizontally straight wings on a bramble looking inconspicuous. Despite the quite wild wind in the high canopy down at ground level it was almost motionless. I'd made the correct choice to come here today, the butterflies were within easy sight and once again I had the site all to myself due presumably to the weather. During one of the more prolonged wet spells I stood quietly listening to the pitter-patter of raindrops. It's a sound I've loved since childhood.

All in all what these two visits to observe butterflies in poor weather has taught me is don't remain indoors bemoaning the inclement summer, head out and see what happens. I'd do that when winter birdwatching, so why not in the summer?  Would I have noticed the butterfly species using bracken as a sunning and drying perch if the weather had not been so changeable? Would the eruption of species simultaneously timing their flights with the sun's emergence have been witnessed if I'd stayed at home? I suspect not and it made for a fantastic immersive experience on both occasions. But I'll leave you with this female blackbird.

I was walking along a boardwalk back to my car when this female appeared. I stopped and she stopped then, after checking me over, she ignored me and hopped a few feet at a time towards me. I stood motionless watching her for what seemed an age. Then when she was around 12 feet from me she dived into the trackside and speared the fattest slug I've seen for a while, a slug much too heavy for her to fly away with.  Transfixed I watched her kill and repeatedly peck the slug for some time until having eaten a large part of it she finally managed to lift the slug remains and fly off, albeit under some difficulty. Whereto she went I have no idea as the torrential rain returned as she flew off, so I the happy wildlife watcher of these two days simply shrugged, pulled my coat a little tighter around me and walked off accompanied by the roar of thousands of raindrops crashing against leaves in the tree canopy. I was alone with my thoughts surrounded by nature at its finest.

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.