Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
NORMALLY telling the difference between the two is easy, but with its strange mechanical sounding churring call, the nightjar is easy to get confused.
Once commonly found nesting on the ground in the lowland heath habitats that bordered many of Greater Manchester’s peatlands, destruction of many of these areas caused this now-rare bird to all but disappear.
However, this summer we have hope of the first breeding pair of nightjars in the area for 20 years, after The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside undertook restoration works to the lowland heath habitats that nightjars prefer.
We got the news from Chat Moss birding legend, Dave Steel, who has been listening to the nightjar’s call on some of his many trips to the moss this year.
Dave told me: “After decades of hope that they would return, I was out one evening in the fading light and I realised that nightjars were back on our mosslands, churring their breeding season song over a landscape that the LWT has painstakingly and lovingly restored back to a habitat fit for so much wildlife.
“When the nightjar approves, you know all the effort has begun to pay off.”
Being almost perfectly camouflaged, with its mottled grey and brown foliage, even though it is about the same size as a kestrel it is incredibly difficult to spot.
Amber listed as a species for conservation concern in the UK, the nightjar is one of our most elusive birds.
Migrating from Africa, it tends to arrive in the UK around April and May, when it then spends its days nesting directly on the ground in scrubby woodland areas and lowland heaths.
Nightjars are crepuscular, meaning that they are active at dawn and dusk, when they swoop around in the semi-darkness catching moths, beetles and other flying insects with their surprisingly wide bill.
And it is when night starts to fall that the nightjar really comes into its own.
Although still often difficult to see, it is almost impossible to mistake its call with that of any other bird.
The strange mechanical churring song that starts to ring out across the darkening sky is the best way to identify the nightjar.
Great excitement was caused when their call was recorded on a secret location on one of Greater Manchester’s peatlands for four weeks earlier this summer, suggesting the possibility that a breeding pair had taken up residence.
There have been recordings of nightjars in the area for a day or two over the past few years, but nothing as consistent as this year’s records for the last 20 years.
Recent works by The Wildlife Trust for
Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside and funded by Viridor Credits to restore some of the rare lowland heath habitats in the area, have been attributed to potential return of the nightjar, showing that our work really can make a difference to our wildlife - especially as the UK has lost 84 per cent of these habitats since 1800.
We are absolutely delighted that the nightjar could once again be returning to the peatlands of Chat Moss and are looking forward to welcoming them back next year already.