Nightjars..."you ain't seen me right?" Cornwall July 2024

 Nightjars... What special birds! Masters of camouflage!

For many years I've enjoyed going out to watch & more often hear them in the forests & heathland of mid & north Cornwall.

Until now all of my photographs have been grab shots of them perched at the top of a tree or whizzing past my ear!

 

All that changed this year when I found my first bird at roost on the ground! 

With its eyes closed and just an occasional flicker showing it was still alive I watched it intently thinking 'does he know I'm here' or is he so confident in its ability to stay motionless and its camouflage that it thinks I can't see it.

Or is it genuinely asleep and doesn't know I'm near?

I've now watched a dozen in various places and always given them plenty of space and photographed them with a long 500mm lens, sometimes cropping in strongly on my computer. Often they are surrounded by dead timber and dry grasses so that they blend in perfectly. In fact I will often gaze for many minutes before I notice one lying along a log of the exact same cryptic colouration. 

These birds are not on nests but roosting probably after fledging young, often close to forestry & heath tracks & footpaths. I'm sure they get regularly disturbed by dogs as these areas are popular with dog walkers and I often see dogs rooting through the areas the nightjars inhabit.

I'm confident that I'm not disturbing them as I have found so many in regular areas, often on the same logs or branches.

So here is a selection of recent images....

 

I suspect this is a juvenile