Got to the end of a fairly long wander along a river to the north of Bedford last night as it was getting dark and had stopped to look and listen to a hunting Barn Owl in one field and a family of calling Tawny Owls in a nearby wood. I thought that was all pretty cool in itself when I suddenly became aware of sound that could only be one thing - Nightjar!
Now, I did have serious doubts at first, given the distinctly untypical terrain in the immediate area but when one actually appeared almost directly overhead showing the Cuckoo like shape and slow and exaggerated wingbeats and then did a bit of a loop before heading back into a wood on the other side of the river all doubts went away. I then hung around for ages to see if there were any more, or if it would come back overhead but I only got a fleeting glimpse of one (it) passing by a gap in the trees on the other side of the river.
I have also been doing a fair bit of searching on Google Earth etc since and there does appear to be some possible decent habitat for them in the area it appeared to come from.
Jim
(Full details with grids etc have been submitted to Birdtrack under the "sensitive" tab).
No comments:
Post a Comment