Transition

It is still light when we arrive, the brightness of a summer’s day slowly slipping into the softer tones of evening. We are in the forest to catch and radio-tag Nightjars for a PhD student studying their ecology. Having chosen suitable spots, we quickly set our fine mesh nets and retire to a nearby forest ride to await the arrival of night and the stirring of the Nightjars. There is time now for patient watching and hushed conversation.

The background drone of flies dissipates and the final bird song slips towards silence, a solitary Song Thrush a last bastion of the daytime brigade. The time for the ‘night watch’ approaches and the first of the evening’s bats appears; a Noctule, an early riser that can sometimes be seen feeding alongside swifts, hawking the air for flying insects. The bat makes several passes up and down the ride and I curse myself for having left the bat detector at home; it would have been good to ‘listen’ to the Noctule as well as watch it pass.

The colour begins to leach out of the vegetation as the daylight fades to replace greens and browns with silvers and greys. A short squeaking note, much like a child’s toy, catches our attention and we glance up to see the dumpy form of a Woodcock silhouetted overhead. The forest seems to support fair numbers of these rather unusual waders – a woodland bird that probes damp soil for earthworms and other invertebrates. Then we hear it, a soft mechanical churring call – a Nightjar, distant but welcome. Soon it is joined by other birds, two close by and in the area of our nets – this bodes well. The closest of the birds is in flight, the churring interspersed with wing claps and calls, moving around off to our right. Then, it is caught, silhouetted against the sky, its effortless buoyant flight taking it in an arc around us and up into the top of a nearby oak. The bird can be seen perched on its song-post, advertising its presence to other birds.

These first excursions provide breathtaking views and we can stand and enjoy them, knowing that it will be another hour before we can turn on the tape lures that should attract the birds into our nets. Being nocturnal, the Nightjar has excellent visual acuity and would be able to avoid the nets if we tried to operate them in this half-light. A sheet of cloud has formed and by 10.30 it is dark enough to try our luck. Each of us manning a single net, tape lure running, we crouch nearby watching and listening, hopeful that we might catch one of these truly amazing birds.