Ten members of the club joined the leader for another Nightjar evening in Clumber Park. We were all pleased to welcome a nice mild evening, a change from the last trip. Many in the party were quietly excited, they had never seen, or heard Nightjars.
As usual with this event we headed off in convoy for Hardwick Village. Some time was spent at the ford where we had a Kingfisher. We moved on to the weir. The species count was mounting; were we in for the highest yet. The leader using his knowledge of the evening had his doubts, time was running out unless something special turned up. Time to go to our chosen site for ‘the main event’, Nightjars. Arriving at the designated spot at just after 9pm there were no sightings of anything. and doubt was setting in! Then with considerable relief we heard the call of a Woodcock then a sighting, then a Tawny was heard. We spoke to a couple of locals who declared that it would be half an hour yet! Then at 9:40pm a churring Nightjar was heard, relief!! This was followed by much churring and amazing sightings of a pair of Nightjars. Our count for the evening was at 43. Not bad.
Leaving the park on his way home the leader saw a Barn Owl sitting on a fence by the roadside. He ‘pulled rank’ and increased the evening’s count to 44.