Night watch for Nightjars.

Jimmy gets home from work and has his dinner, as we settle down to watch the worst programme that has ever been on our television, Eastenders I know I don't have to watch it , but my wife has it on and you sort of watch it rather than going out of the room. I sit there and read. Jimmy gets a call from Brian at about 7 o'clock to ask us if we want to go to the Brecks to try for Nightjars, well we are out of the door in 10 minutes and meet up with him for the hours drive to get there.

As we turn off the main road to head down to the Brecks Brian spots a Little Owl sitting on a haystack, this is a year tick for me.
I know where Little Owls can be seen near my home at Lea Valley but each time I think of going to see them the weather turns nasty and they won't be sitting out for me to see them, so this is a good sighting for me.

We pull up and get the scopes out to see what we can see as it is to early for the target bird.
Not to long before a nice Barn Owl is seen flying low across the fields hunting for it's tea.
A great long sighting of one of our favourite birds.

Then we hear a Tawny Owl calling from the woods, next up we see a Hobby, followed by 2 more,one flies down and sits on a post not to far away, Brian gets a good picture of it.
Jimmy scans the sandy heath and the clearing in front of the forest and spots a couple of Woodlark sitting up in good view, also Stonechat are seen. Scanning the other side of the heath a few Stone Curlews are spotted, this is a good night so far but we need to find the target bird now.

Brian gets in his car and leaves us behind, to see if he can find anything down the road,while he is gone Jimmy & I are getting a noise from the other side of the field, we listen and we think we hear the purring trill of a Nightjar, we wait for Brian to come back and tell him what we heard and we stand very quite and listen for a good hour, not a peep so not being sure what we heard it has to be a dip.
A Cuckoo had been calling nearly all evening, and it was still at it when we packed up to go home.

A really nice evening birding we dipped out on the target bird but what we did see was worth the trip and we will try again on another night for the Nightjar.