Nighthawk. 14th October 2019

I spent the week on Scilly with half an eye (ok more than half) on the lingering and incredibly showy Common Nighthawk near Ballymena in County Antrim. The photos were gripping as the bird performed ludicrously well on it's daytime roosts and around dusk. I very much hoped it would linger, but they rarely do and it didn't initially seem likely. Ah well, this was the 'commonest' North American land bird I have yet to see on this side of the Atlantic, so there would be another sooner or later I told myself as I tried to put it from my mind. News of it's presence initially came to birders attention on Monday 7th, but it later transpired it had probably been present for a couple of weeks before that. Hopes were raised a little, but still.

But it did stay, and was showing yet again as we drove back home from Scilly on Monday 14th. Naturally I had been hatching plans for this eventuality and I went to work on the morning of Tuesday 15th and awaited news. This was slow coming, so I booked a 13:45 Easyjet flight from Liverpool to Belfast for the afternoon and my first visit to Northern Ireland. Mid-morning news of it's continued presence was a relief, although it had simply made a fly through and changed it's roost habits for the first time. Would it ever return? Was that it moving off finally? I was committed now and certainly not going to see it without even trying, yet I boarded the flight with some trepidation. I collected a hire car and set off on the 25 minute drive. I was about halfway there and received news to say it was present again and hawking. My foot became heavier for the last 15 minutes. Please let it linger...

On arrival I donned wellies and strode off into the riverside field where I could see a couple of birders looking at nothing, before realising that the COMMON NIGHTHAWK was in fact hawking quite high in front of me. Instant success. Wow! It performed superbly for the next 5 minutes or so before dropping down into a distant ash tree.

As I walked closer towards the roost tree Phil Woollen messaged me to say he'd just found a male Siberian Rubythroat on Fetlar! Delighted for the Fetlar lads I was supposed to be with, it doesn't get much better than that.

 

Lee Fuller's stunning shot, taken whilst I was there, but by someone who knows what to do with a camera.

And another of Lee's, take in the morning whilst the sun was still out. Splendid beast.

The nighthawk was on view in the ash tree at around 100m. And there is stayed for the next couple of hours so I settled in to wait and caught up with a few birders including John Rayner, one of Cheshire's finest. They had to leave to catch a boat, so from around 5.30 I waited alone and watched. At about 5.45 it suddenly awoke and dropped from it's roost perch, heading straight over my head and towards the river.

I was in the perfect spot, and for the next 30 minutes or so it put on a show I will long remember, constantly hawking and regularly passing low overhead. The views were breathtaking, and exactly how you hope to see a nighthawk. As darkness slowly descended it dropped to feed low over the narrow river, so I re-positioned myself to the banks and the show continued in a different vain is it moved back and forth along the river, frequently passing within a few feet of me. I'd say this was up there with the best of my twitching encounters of all time. An absolutely thrilling bird.

The return flight was relaxed and I arrived home around 11:15. A perfect twitch (and 545 now by the way).