Skip to main content

An amazing and distinctly uncommon Common Nighthawk spends a day in Wantage


 

One thing you can definitely say about this hobby is expect the unexpected! 

 

As lunchtime approached yesterday I was thinking about starting to pack for Shetland when some really startling news started to appear on social media. A mega rare American Common Nighthawk had been found roosting on someone’s garden fence in Wantage!

 

The initial chatter on twitter was that surely this was a Eurasian Nightjar, a nice bird in its own right but not particularly rare, but pictures soon appeared confirming its stellar identity.

 

The fence owner had spotted the bird at 07:00 and thought it was a Nightjar. He was concerned for its welfare as it was asleep and not moving. Nightjars are in fact , crepuscular which means they are most active at dawn and dusk and roost in the day. While they are normally well hidden during daylight hours they will occasionally roost out in the open, for example on fence posts.  

 

Oxford bird recorder and brilliant bird artist Ian Lewington was called in to check and immediately identified the bird as a juvenile Common Nighthawk at which point the bird alert and social media services exploded with the news.

 

This really was a drop everything and go situation. Come nightfall the bird would start hawking for moths and was very unlikely to come back to this roost the next day. It was also asleep right next to a number of parked cars and should any of the owners return to their cars it would surely be flushed. 

 

A very nervous 90 minute drive later I arrived at the birds location, said a quick hello to a few of my Oxford birding friends at the entrance to the small cul de sac, dropped £10 into the charity collection bin and headed for the bird which was still showing ridiculous well on the fence.

 

The fact that there have been 26 previous UK records of this bird hides how difficult they are to connect with. Only 11 records are from the mainland and most of these have been brief twilight  flyovers. Hence many birders, including me, still needed it for their UK lists.

 

The views of this stunning bird were truly astonishing. It would doze a while, partially open a sleepy eye, shuffle around and go back to sleep. The most remarkable feature of this aerial insectivore was its small beak that belies the massiveness of its mouth which it would occasionally open while yawning. Its colouration was  cryptic  and intricate providing perfect camouflage  for this ground nesting bird. It is the American relative of our European Nightjar to which it bears a superficial resemblance and shares many of its habits. The Common Nighthawk is the only Nighthawk occurring over the majority of northern North America where it is strongly migratory ,spending the winter in South America. As per our Nightjar, moths are its favourite food.

   






While it was amazing to think that this juvenile bird, which only hatched this spring, had somehow flown east rather than south over at least 4,000 miles of ocean, their normal migration route will see them cover similar distances, although food while traveling would be much less of an issue!

 

After an hour or so I said goodbye to a few friends and made my way home. True to form, the bird took to the wing at dusk and starting hawing for insects before flying strongly south and has not been seen since.

 

What a remarkable experience! 


Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!  

Comments

  1. Fantastic to see all the photos of the bird. Thank you! So exciting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stunner, wasn't it! Sorry we missed you.... x

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Black Kite at Duncombe Park and thoughts on its provenance

     A rare Black Kite was at Duncombe park for a week or so, often associating with the display birds at the national bird of prey centre. While most birders who have seen it seem happy enough to tick it as a wild bird, its location has led to some doubts being expressed over its provenance. Some have even gone as far as to state categorically  that it’s an escapee.   So before I describe my visit to see it lets examine its provenance. As anyone who has read my blogs before will know , I’m a scientist with a doctorate in Physics and this drives me to analyse problems such as the provenance of this bird with as much logic as possible. In this regard I feel it is very important to state clearly what is a fact and what is based on a balance of probabilities.   So let’s start with the facts.    To start with it must be stated that historically there have been,  and probably still are, both genuinely wild and  escaped captive Black Kites present in the UK. The relative population of each a

A UK first! – a Grey-headed Lapwing in Northumberland

     We were out walking our dogs yesterday morning when I said to my every suffering wife that May was a top month for rarities. We had just got home and I was making coffee when I picked up on our twitching WhatsApp group that a Grey-headed Lapwing had been found near the Scottish border in Northumberland! This would be the first UK record of this Asian Lapwing and only the 4 th  in the whole of the western  palearctic.    So after a very quick coffee I was in the car and off on the 285 mile trip to Newton-by-the-Sea. It was a mainly boring motorway drive punctuated by a few nervous stops to make sure the bird was still there – a passing raptor could be enough to spook it and make it depart!   The excellent “twitching the UK group” was providing good updates on the traffic conditions, parking and the bird on route and I arrived at 16:00 and found a space to park amongst the many cars. Walking towards the birds location is always notable for the relaxed birders chatting on route back

A Baikal Teal revisits RSPB Greylake

  I’ve seen a couple of Baikal Teals in the UK, most recently 2 years ago at RSPB Greylake on the Somerset levels. It sits in that well populated category on my UK list that I’ve mentioned many times in blogs before, i.e. seen but badly!   Now a little surprisingly given its two year absence, what is presumably the returning  adult drake was re-found at Greylake yesterday.  So, with at least some sun forecast to break the seemingly endlessly monotonous  dull December days today, off I went on the 90 minute journey down the M5 to see if I could get some better views.    While checking previous Baikal Teal records I discovered that the Greylake bird from two years ago was the only UK bird I have seen that has been accepted as wild by the great powers to be providing further incentive to visit. A short walk from an almost full car park took me to the same hide overlooking a large expanse of water that I last visited two years ago. The small open hide was quite busy but with enough space t