May 30th Mousehold Heath & June 3rd Buxton Heath

May 30th  Mousehold Heath

Moth night at Mousehold. A warm evening but slightly breezy, though it didn't put off the moths. Most of what we caught were treble lines, but we also had buff-tip, brimstones, swallow prominent, red roller, silver-y, flame shoulder, light emerald and a least black arches.

June 3rd   Buxton Heath

I was invited by Tricia, my Strumpshaw colleague, to join her and her two friends to Buxton Heath for a spot of nightjar watching. However, before her friends arrived, Tricia and I got to Buxton an hour early to search for orchids.

Common Spotted Orchid

Our search took us into the boggy parts of the site, where it felt much warmer and humid, smelled strongly of mint, and the biting insects were swarming over us. Thankfully, there were plenty of marsh orchids to see. Maybe too many. The more we looked, the more we found and the more confused I got in identifying them. Most of them were a deep purple with plain green leaves. I was confident that these were southern marsh orchids. But then I found some early marsh orchids that have raised sepals and much narrower flowers and then I noticed specimens that appeared to have the description of both species. A hybrid perhaps? Then, there were these orchids that had spotted leaves with some having the wider lip of the heath spotted orchid and others with thinner flowers that had more notable lobes to them. With time and daylight against me and with pools of sweat forming on my face from exploring the boggy terrain, I was none the wiser of which orchid species I was seeing.  Marsh orchids are hard!




Southern Marsh Orchid

[Edit: After having someone with a more expert eye take a look at my photos, I was told that most of them were mainly common spotted and southern marsh orchids with a few hybrids in the mix too. Even he admits that he's not 100% sure that he's correct or not though. I shall have to try and visit again so that I can do my little videos.]

 

It was now nearing the time that nightjars were going to emerge. So we met up with Tricia's two friends and made our way to a spot where I have seen them a couple of times before where the heathland and woodland were divided by a fence. The midges were a constant nuisance, but amongst their buzzing in my ear, I was starting to hear the unmistakable, eerie, churring calls of nightjars in the darkness. We were surrounded, but it took some time to actually see one in the dim, dark light gliding over our heads. This kestrel-sized nocturnal bird feeds on the wing like a swift and as a summer migrant busy establishing a territory, it also does something else on the wing too; wing clapping. The ones here tonight were actively clapping their wings a lot. We also heard a few short whistling peep sounds, which I initially thought were woodcocks until a nightjar flew over our heads making this noise.

I love these strange birds and though I have had many encounters in the past, I have yet to see one in broad daylight posing for a photo. This is because they are extremely hard to spot as their plumage is cryptic and makes extremely good camouflage allowing them to be like part of the leaf litter as they sleep the day away. Maybe one day I hope to get that rare opportunity, but for now, I am satisfied. It is going to be hard to top a churring nightjar wing clapping and flying low over your head like this. It just adds to the wonder and charm of this fascinating, mysterious bird.