Nightjars on the Commons

Last night Martin and I shared a Sussex Common with several Nightjars and a horde of voracious midges. It is quite enthralling, waiting for the sun to go down and to hear the first churring. Unfortunately last night we also had a helicopter fly by, a barking dog and in the distance an outdoor concert  with the obligatory bass thump. Never mind, at around 2145 the first faint sounds were heard. Soon a closer bird flew by and perched for us and then commenced a fairly loud churring session - wonderful!

The photographs were taken in near darkness - for the photographers - Canon 7d Mkii coupled with a Canon 300mm F2.8 and 1.4 extender - hand held. The remarkable thing is that I managed to get any sort of recognisable shot as I had the camera set to ISO 10000 and a shutter speed of 1/30 of a second.

Taken at 21:56!

Being so close afforded the opportunity to record the churring, flight calls and wing clapping that are characteristic of the bird.

Sonogram of the first recording, sorry the blog doesn't run to synchronised sound and vision.

Press play for the audio track

For the Geeks. Olympus LS11 with Sennheiser Me66/K6. Post processing in Audacity. Sonograms in Raven Lite.

This is a second recording of the same bird, this time with a high pass filter applied at 320 Hz, helping to remove some of the ever present aircraft noise. The swatting sounds remain, I am afraid the midges were getting through my defences.

Nightjar - on The Commons.

It's a simple question - "Would you rather have someone who is lucky or an expert as a birding/butterflying buddy"? My compatriot Martin has many qualities but the most valued is his Serendipity or "fortuitous happenstance". Time and again the dialogue has been "Where shall we go"?  My normal response is a cautious "Pagham  - there is always something there". Martin's selection was "Lets go to the commons" and so began another cracking day out.

As we arrived at "the common" in sunshine we visited one of the pools that are surrounded by Juncus and Heather. Sure enough Dragonflies were on the wing - Four Spot Chaser definitely and probably Broad Bodied Chasers.

Over in the distance a bird going through a familiar routine - singing from the top of a tree and then flying straight up and "parachuting" back down to its favoured perch - Tree Pipit. In our attempts to get closer to the obliging bird we flushed a Woodlark - of course it didn't pause for a photo. Having got closer to the Pipit by using all our fieldcraft skills,  I was distracted by the dayflying heather moths which are almost impossible to capture. Never mind, at least I got a record shot of a year tick but sadly, dipped the moth.

 

Next we chased a rather nice example of a Beautiful Demoiselle that was willing to perch but always deep inside the dense gorse patches. At his point a large yellow object caught my eye - a Hornet and a big one at that, alighting on a bramble leaf in front of us. We had just been discussing which lens to have on for the next part of the walk, the demoiselle had convinced me to be using a 100mm macro. So when the hornet presented itself I was ideally equipped whereas Martin still had his 500mm mounted. Whilst this is fairly comical the roles were to be reversed shortly after.

Carrying on with a circular perambulation we spotted a Woodlark up in a tree at a fair distance, as we closed to get a shot I was again distracted, a sheet of corrugated iron lying in the heather just had to be lifted. Sure enough, underneath, a Slow Worm, unfortunately not living up to its name as it made a bolt for a hole in the ground and before I knew it had half disappeared. I am old enough and wise enough to know that if you grab a Slow Worm by the tail you end up holding just that - the tail, whilst the main body is long gone. So that's my excuse for not capturing the Woodlark.

After this we were buzzed by a large dragonfly hawking around some gorse bushes, a green specimen which I believe was a female Emperor. We observed it catching the heather moths, eating them in flight and discarding the wings. At this stage I had my first "heart attack" of the day. We saw the dragonfly going into the gorse and believed that it had landed so I peered carefully through some branches and came face to face with old whiskers. Just a few feet away a superbly camouflaged Nightjar. Tying to convey the information to Martin, whilst realising that I had the 100mm macro on and that I was probably going to spook the bird anytime soon, meant that I achieved only a few shots. But who cares - a stunning bird and another unexpected year tick.

On the way back to the car park I had my second "heart attack" - I had my lens carrier on my back, in my right hand the camera and in the left my monopod. Unfortunately I turned my ankle in a rut and took a real purler. Conscious that my camera should be protected I held it aloft and fell with some force on to the monopod. Martin turned round to find me groaning and clutching my chest. Sorry to frighten you Martin and I can assure you that there is no real damage save the imprint "Gitzo" just under my left nipple.

On then to Houghton via Bury where I recorded my first Bee Orchid of the year. Now in butterfly mode we found our first Large Skipper. The ride off Madehurst Lane was particularly quiet, just a few Speckled Woods and a very faded Brimstone where I expected to see plenty of skippers.

Very fresh

So on home where I immediately tweeted the hornet to see if I could get it on Springwatch Unsprung's "Bug of the day" - beats a Bittern any time.

Nightjar time

I had decided that the first sunny day would be a trip to Rye Harbour, following the post on SOS by Bernie, Dave and Dorian about Church Norton - Spotted Flycatchers and Marlpit Lane - Turtle Doves it was a hasty change of mind and an early start at Church Norton. There were several "spotties" present when I arrived  so I tried to get the early morning sun right and blow me by the time I got behind the hide they had disappeared. Anyway, there were some obliging Whitethroats posing well on the bushes facing the harbour. One male in particular was doing all the antics and singing his head off, meanwhile his mate was doing all the hard work in sorting out the nest site.



Whitethroat



Madame Whitethroat



Whitethroat

I met Terry, another birder whose surname I don't know, who gave me excellent directions for Marlpit Lane so it was off to find some Turtle Doves. As soon as I parked the car in one of the laybys and opened the door I was blasted by a wall of sound from a Nightingale - I guess about six feet away but totally invisible to me. Throughout my stay there were at least five Nightingales singing on and off and were just getting going strongly when I left at 1300. There were also the reported Turtle Doves purring away  and occasionally they would do crossing flights of the ride and one eventually landed in the grass and fed - just too far away for a shot. In my attempts to get better views I flushed a bird from beneath the hedge which flew about ten yards and perched in a tree by the roadside.  Extrication from the hedge took some time but I eventually got a bead on him and was astounded to see it was a Nightjar. Conditions were fairly dark so up to 1000 ISO and hope for the best. Unfortunately I was using the 400mm f5.6 handheld, so I ran back to the car, grabbed tripod and big lens and returned to find the bird had vacated the premises.





Nightjar



Nightjar - 'old whiskers'

Onward to Lavington Plantation, which was somewhat lacking in birds, but at least I found a pair of Treecreepers feeding merrily on the Grafham side.

Treecreeper

Treecreeper