Dusk and dawn on Budby Common, Sherwood Forest

An overnight stay in Mansfield allowed me to visit nearby Budby common at dusk yesterday and again early this morning, both very different birding experiences.

I love visiting heathlands such as this at dusk, because a whole array of birds are revealed that you might otherwise be unaware of and all your senses are sharpened as you hear noises and see things that seem quite eerie. As soon as I arrived a cuckoo called in the distance and a tree pipit performed it's last display of the day and then it was over to the birds of the night.

It was still quite light when a tawny owl hooted close by and a few minutes later a squeak behind me signalled the first woodcock of the evening, roding right overhead.

Time was when we used to sit outside with a pint at the Bottle and Glass at Rainford and watch these birds roding overhead, but those days are now long gone and my last record from there is from 2007. I'm not even sure that woodcock breed there these days, I think the reason we stopped going was because we no longer saw the birds.

This evening on Budby common I counted at least seven different birds.

By now the last embers of daylight had almost gone. The occasional woodcock still flew overhead and there were various noises coming from the nearby tawny owl. At last I heard that which I had really come here for, the churring of a nightjar. It seemed quite distant but I walked back down the track and got a little closer but still too far to have any hope of seeing it. Still, a great experience.

I needed to be up and out of my hotel at dawn so I didn't want to be out too late this evening so I slowly made my way back towards the car which was over a mile distant. As I went I picked up another couple of churring nightjars, but still no sightings and now it was getting very dark. Suddenly I was stopped in my tracks by the familiar 'heartbreaking' high pitched begging call of a juvenile long-eared owl, unseen but quite close by.

I put my headtorch on and continued on my way. Another half a mile and I'd given up any hope of seeing a nightjar, but I was still happy with what I had experienced. Then, unexpectedly, another nightjar churred and this was the closest yet. I looked in the general direction of the sound which happened to be the closest bush to me and there it was! At least there were it's eyes, reflecting the light of my head torch back at me like cats-eyes in the road. Then the bird flew to the next bush and the white dots on it's tail glowed almost as bright as its eyes. I followed it in my binoculars, lit by the light of my headtorch, until it landed. Then I left it and headed back to the car, but not before the most alarming part of the whole evening when I came across another set of eyes reflected back, but these belonged to a demon, a longhorn cow which was part of a herd which was right across my path. They seemed docile enough, but I'm very wary around cows especially in a situation such as this at night. I arrived back at my hotel at 11.15pm.

The nightjar experience tonight reminded me of a similar experience that I had in South Wales in 2015, when I heard a croak close behind me and saw the glowing eyes of a nightjar as it flew towards me! 

The following morning I was at my job for 4.30am. It was only a small site and by 6.30am I was back at Budby common, and this was a very different experience. The first bird I saw was a tree pipit in a tree right next to where I parked the car. At least two cuckoos were singing and lots of warblers including several garden warblers, blackcap and whitethroat. In the distance a green woodpecker called, then another gave me a fright as it flushed noisily at close range from a ditch at the side of the track. A hobby dashed past and a couple of red kites soared in the distance.

I could hear distant woodlark but didn't see any until I came to an area of heathland with some patches of bare earth. Here I saw several birds and one conveniently perched up and started singing close to the footpath.  

Probably the best view I've ever had of woodlark in the UK.

So it was an excellent visit to Budby common, very tiring of course with a late night followed by an early morning but worth the effort. Then it was onto Welbeck Raptor Watch Point which will be the subject of the next blog post......