An educational evening

Every year I make my annual pilgrimage down to Chobham common in Surrey. This is a lovely bit of gorse and heather sort of behind Wentworth, so getting there involves going past some VERY posh houses.Of course, my reason for going is more esoteric - nightjars. There are a number of pairs on the heath here, in fact they are reasonably wide spread all round the south east if you get the right habitat and this is just perfect for them.
They migrate here from Africa, arriving about mid May and stay till late August or early September. The issue with them though is that they are pretty much nocturnal, or at least strongly crepuscular. A trip to see them means getting there late and waiting till dusk.
I left work about 5.30 and with the usual awful traffic it took me 90 minutes to drive 25 miles. Still, no rush as the sun was still high. I parked up and trotted off fully laden with camera gear, mozzy repellent and sandwiches for my tea. The common is part of the wider heathlands round there and has a nice circular walk taking you first of all on top of a low ridge then round and below it. Apart from a rather annoying group of cub scouts it was pretty quiet. I did bump into a family party of Dartford warblers though and this youngster was particularly confiding.

I spent the next couple of hours happily wandering around the heath whilst the sun slowly sank, producing some lovely colours in the grasses and heathers.

I suppose you could say this is my version of a selfie!!

Finally the sun started to hit the horizon and the light levels really faded.

I grabbed what I thought was a good spot to watch for nightjars from and really struck lucky. Another bloke came along and asked me to move stuff from a bench I had plonked it on as he "wanted to set up his equipment". My first reaction was "find you own bench" but he then explained that he is a keen amateur who is doing a study of nightjars, and has been doing so for some years. He is trying to understand their behaviour and what causes them to become active in the evening. In order to do it he takes things like light, temperature and wind readings and so for comparison purposes needs to do them in the same place. For the next hour I suppose I had a very interesting lecture, and I use that word in a complimentary way, on the habits of nightjars and woodcock. Light is the key factor. They wont become active until it falls to about 105 lux and lo and behold almost as it hit that they started churring. This is their call, which is a very strange noise and, fact #2, they make it on breathing in and out and so do it continuously. Eventually a couple flopped up out of the heather and started flying around. It was now effectively dark as it was gone 10! As we were on the low side of the ridge though I did get the chance for one photo when one stopped in a tree giving a lovely silhouette against the fading light.

On cue the second typical of Chobham bird appeared, a lone woodcock. It was predicted that they would be later as they only become active when the light drops to 30 lux, which was almost perfect again. This one did a couple of circuits before heading off. With the light gone, the midges biting and a big day tomorrow I headed off, not only satisfied with some really good views but a lot better educated on these mysterious birds.