Monday, June 9, 2008 - Caesar's Nightjars
With the summer doldrums well and truly in place I was continuing to work through my summer "hit list" of birds to see. I therefore decided to go on an evening session to look for nightjar and woodcock back at Swinely Forest/Crowthorne Woods in Berkshire. I arranged to go there with a fellow birder whom I'd met several times on the Meadow and had got to know. He was also keen to see Dartford Warbler as he needed it for his UK list and it was on my summer hit list (I'd seen one as a boy) so I too was keen to see one. Neither of us had seen a nightjar since our childhood so we were both well overdue for another sighting.
My companion was due to pick me up at 5:30pm and as I waited for him I was hoping that he had air conditioning in his car as it was rather a hot afternoon (though this would make for ideal conditions for the evening). As he was an academic and therefore presumably (or so I thought) impoverished I had visions of his turning up in some beat up old car. I needed have worried as he arrived in a lovely big jaguar: academia clearly isn't what it used to be in my day! In the luxury of his car the journey only took an hour (it had taken me an hour and a quarter when I had done it) and we soon arrived at the "kebab van entrance" with the van already set up and serving.
Ignoring the temptations of the van we set off into the forest and almost immediately turned off to look for firecrests in the area where they'd been seen a while ago. It was immediately evident that there was much more bird activity now than when I'd last been there and there was plenty to listen out for though the birds were still rather hard to see. After a lot of craning up at the tree tops and listening all we could find were coal tits and gold crests. We headed on over to Caesar's Camp seeing and hearing plenty of warblers along the way.
I'd not actually been in the Camp last time and as this was supposedly a good spot for dartford warblers we decided to take a thorough look there. I'd been told where to look last time so we went straight there and started scanning through the small trees and heather. Quite quickly I heard what I was sure was a dartford calling and soon spotted a distant bird though my companion pointed out that it was a stonechat. He seems to have better eyes than I do though I was better on the calls so we worked together quite well as a team. We continued to scan and then both saw something of the right size and shape fly across briefly. Encouraged we started to move closer when suddenly I heard a male dartford singing from close by and the next moment he flew up giving a clear view before ducking back down into the undergrowth. A clear sighting for both of us and a great start to the evening.
With about an hour still to go till we could hope to see anything crepuscular we decided to head over to the Lower Star Post area to see if we could find any redstarts which were supposed to be there. We walked at a fast past down there, not seeing much on the way and scoured the key area but it was perhaps a bit late now because there was not much around. We did see several deer on the way though. We both agreed that Caesar's Camp looked the best spot for the nightjars and decided to head back there to wait for the action to begin.
When we got there we were just doing a quick tour of the Camp and deciding where to have our sandwiches when we met up with Jerry O'Brian, who runs the Birds of Berkshire web-site. He said that he'd seen three nightjars there the night before so we decided to stick with him. He also told us that the birds often sit on dead branches in the surrounding trees when they first come out which I hadn't know about. We therefore dutifully scanned the trees but to no avail. After a little while we heard a distant chur and I suddenly saw one fly up briefly not 20 yards from us before going back to ground though my companion hadn't seen it. Shortly afterwards it did it again and this time we all saw it. As the evening progressed we got excellent views of a male and a female including a flight almost over our heads. We also saw a woodcock fly over a couple of times which was great to see as it was another of my summer hit list birds.
Well satisfied with our nightjar sightings we said good bye to Jerry and headed back to the kebab van entrance. On the way we managed to see two more pairs of nightjars, one in each of the clearings so we must have seen at least six in total - an excellent result.
A most successful trip with three target birds seen and the year list now up to 178. My summer hit-list is now down to the following birds: redstart, firecrest, nightingale, stone curlew, quail, mandarin duck and willow tit.
176: dartford warbler
177: nightjar
178: woodcock.
|
|
Post A Comment!
|
|
About Me
I used to be a birder in my youth but rather lost interest in my teens as other things became more interesting. However recently I've rediscovered this interest and would like to share my sightings and thoughts in this blog.
Friends
|
