I hope you’re not getting tired of hearing about Nightjar but honestly I don’t care haha. Spending time with one species, learning more about their characteristics and behaviour is what I love and it’s the only way you’ll ever get a chance of photographing this species in the day. I’m now on my 4th pair and my 7th individual (yet to locate the female of the 4th pair). I find it interesting that each pair has chosen a different type of habitat, or at-least the same habitat at different stages.

3-4 Year Old clear-fell, mostly small-medium sized trees
1 year old clear-fell, only bracken, grass.
3 year old clear-fell, mostly grassland, bracken and heath
3 year old clear-fell, totally rocky habitat with bracken between.

It goes to show how versatile they are, so long as there is suitable habitat around them for moths, they’ll roost almost anywhere there’s suitable cover.
The pair that’s chosen the rocky habitat is the one that I’m most interested in, as he’s also choosing to roost on rocks, rather than logs/sticks. If you look closely, even the shape of his back appears to match the shape of the rock. I wonder if this is strategic? Shape conforming is common amongst species that rely on camouflage to survive and they do appear to match their chosen roost spot. If on the end of a log, they’ll sit tall, short, tail town as if they’re part of the end of that log. If they sit across a stick, they’ll sit in the same direction and flatten themselves out.

As a contrast, here’s the female of pair number 3 showing that typical flattened out pose that matches the long shape of a stick. I loved this chosen roost spot, but it’s doubtful she’ll use it again though as she looks ready to burst. I’m surprised she hasn’t laid yet. Maybe she has and her first clutch failed? I hope that isn’t the case.

I’ve also been studying their vocalisations but I’ve needed a few years worth of field recordings on Nightjar, in order to confirm a theory that you can identify individual males by their song. The way you would do this is to work out the average BPM, length of phrases and also the frequency of both exhale and inhale.
I’ve collected so far at-least 6 different males, though I’ve focused on returning to the same territory for the last 2 years in the hope to confirm it with one individual male. So far it looks like I can confirm this theory, as I’m finding only a 0.8 difference between the BPM recorded in 2017 to present day. A couple more years worth of recording Males and I should be able to give more weight to this theory.
The analysis is actually pretty easy and could even be done in the field so long as you had a laptop to return to. I’ll publish more details about my methods at the end of the season.

I’ll start this blog with a picture from yesterday female ‘Lichen’ who has just a week left before her eggs hatch. She’s been a great mother so far, sitting in this horrific wet weather. I’ve kept an eye on her as I honestly thought that the ditch she was in would fill with water but luckily it hasn’t. I should have more faith in her nest location choice, they clearly know what they’re doing.

I’ve spent more time sound recording this year than I have taking photo’s, but it’s mainly been for research rather than creating presentable audio. Listening to the world through an amplified microphone, does have two different affects on me. It mainly helps me focus on isolated sounds, focusing my brain on one thing which helps drown out noise-pollution. It can also however make you more aware of noise, as when the bird stops singing, all you’re left with is the sounds of over-head planes, distant traffic, or the roaring sound of off-road motorbikes. Finding locations that are noise-free in Gwent, is becoming near impossible. Is there any wonder that the world is suffering from the highest number of depression cases ever recorded?

A lack of understanding from the governments of the world regarding sound-pollution is mostly because ‘sound’ for them is some unquantifiable measure of consequences that cannot be contained.

This is so far from the truth! We need to approached the subject in a different manner and a start would be to recognise sound for what it really is, and that is Pressure.
No matter what the sound is, big or small, we receive that sound via pressure to our ears drums, and that pressure signal is interpreted by the brain. Our brains work so hard to filter out bad sound pressure, but it’s a battle we’re going to lose. This is why thousands like me escape to the countryside, to try and experience natures gift of silence. In many places we’ve lost it already, but it’s not too late.

There have been some huge milestones recently in the fight against noise-pollution - https://us.whales.org/2018/07/03/noise-pollution-chronically-stresses-whales-and-dolphins/
Marine scientists have been studying Whale sounds for decades and with thousands of Whales washing up on our beaches every year, finally it was proven that military-sonar was the cause. Sound travels much further under water, and as a result, much of our marine life has evolutionary adaptations to exploit this

While it’s a good thing that the world is being forced to think about air and water pollution, we also need to fight the corner for noise and light pollution too. We need protected zones all around the globe where traffic is diverted so we can minimise our impact on natural silence. Hopefully one day we’ll have silent zones close to home that are protected also but for now, it’s my goal to seek these locations out for my own mental health.

This video is a couple years old now, but please watch it. It highlights many of the things I’ve mentioned.

Blog Content

Shape Conforming

Forgotten Silence