NIGHTJAR - successful breeding on patch

I'll start this post by stating that I'm currently in Egypt. I knew going away at the beginning of September would probably mean I miss one or two good birds on patch, but didn't expect such quality as Citrine Wagtail, Spotted Crake and Wryneck! I'm disappointed to have missed those, but thankfully I've seen the latter two on patch in previous years, and the Wagtail was a brief visitor so I may not have seen it anyway. Look out Steve Waite, with all the good patch birds this year it looks good for Phil Abbott to jump your record...

Back to the post title regarding Nightjars. I've had more time this Summer to monitor the activities of the Colyton Nightjars. August 2013 was the last time I saw these so I thought it was about time to see their progress; and what fantastic progress there has been! I'll do a full write up about them upon my return from Egypt, and also a write up on birds I've seen whilst away. Nightjars are VERY difficult to photograph, but weeks of monitoring their behaviour gave me a wealth of knowledge to be able to photograph them whilst causing minimal disturbance (monitoring during early stages of breeding and photographs post fledging). Some of the birds were surprisingly confiding once they'd become accustomed to my presence (maybe they didn't even see me) so although I didn't take many pics, I have had some fantastic experiences with them.

I'm glad to report that there were a minimum of 8 Nightjar at the site, including 3 juveniles in August (adult and 2cy birds were counted in July only). A fantastic success!