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!