One of the UK’s weirdest, and least understood, birds is facing increasing challenges as a result of wetter springs and ongoing insect declines. Researchers from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) have been tagging rare nocturnal Nightjars, in the hope of better understanding the secret life of these peculiar visitors. As dusk falls, an eerie sound drifts across the heath. A strange, almost mechanical, insistent purr. This is the sound of a male Nightjar, a bird that most people have never even heard of, let alone heard or seen for themselves.

One of the UK’s weirdest, and least understood, birds is facing increasing challenges as a result of wetter springs and ongoing insect declines.

Researchers from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) have been tagging rare nocturnal Nightjars, in the hope of better understanding the secret life of these peculiar visitors.

As dusk falls, an eerie sound drifts across the heath. A strange, almost mechanical, insistent purr. This is the sound of a male Nightjar, a bird that most people have never even heard of, let alone heard or seen for themselves.

  • paysrenttobirds@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    4 months ago

    I’ve seen these only twice, skimming over an overgrown grass field next to my college campus, and kiting around the treetops of a beetle infested lakeside forest. Their calls when flying were what attracted everyone’s attention to look for them in the gloom. But none of us had seen them more than a couple times. They didn’t come back the next night to either place.