The parish Nightjar walk took place on July 5th in the northern part of Hemsted Forest and was very well attended. Within seconds of arriving at the viewing site a male started to churr. It flew to various song posts in its territory and it was clear that we were gathered very much in the centre of the territory. It spent a long time churring on a lone oak tree nearby and we were able to see the bird silhouetted against the evening sky line. Its characteristic horizontal pose on a bare branch was enjoyed by all. The visit was well over an hour and this male must have churred for over ninety per cent of the time. A very obliging individual. We tried very hard to entice it to fly over us so that the party could witness its ghostly fluttering flight but it totally ignored us and when it did fly it kept close to the vegetation and out of sight. There were also Nightjars at the car park end of the forest so it would seem that the Nightjar numbers are holding up.

2010 appears to be a good breeding year generally with plenty of young birds present, which is a very good news as after two relatively cold winters had reduced numbers quite considerably. Normally it is the small birds that suffer the most but there is evidence that larger birds are suffering too. The BTO have just released their breeding bird survey results for 2009. Two birds highlighted in the summary are two birds of prey the Kestrel and Sparrowhawk. The Kestrel has declined over twenty per cent in the last twenty years but suffered a huge decline of thirty six per cent in the last year. Intensification of farming has been blamed for the gradual decline over the longer term but there is no obvious explanation for last year except for the cold winter. The Kestrel feeds on small rodents, particularly field voles and these small mammals may have suffered in the cold or been unavailable to hunt under a cover of snow! If that is the case then the 2010 figures should also prove to be bad following an even harder winter. These figures have come as a bit of a surprise as I have not picked up this decline in our area. It will be interesting when the all the regional figures are released. The Sparrowhawk which has seen its population rise rapidly after the organochlorine pesticide poisoning in the 60's has seen a seven per cent decline over the last thireteen years and eighteen per cent decline in the last year. It is sad to report that the Barn Owls at Forest Farm have not returned this year after four very successful years. I can only assume that the pair failed to survive last winter.

Rare birds and particularly British Firsts continue to excite the birding community and some of these birds are only identified when pictures are posted on the internet. This was the case of an Eastern Crowned Warbler recently seen in the NorthEast. Just occasionally a really elegant and beautiful, easily identifiable, bird turns up unexpectedly. This was the case recently in the form of a White-tailed Lapwing also known as White-tailed Plover. This individual has been tracked from Lancashire, where it was first seen, to Gloucestershire, Holland, Essex and at the time of writing (mid-July) at Dungeness where I caught up with it. What an elegant, delicate and colourful bird. It has long bright yellow legs enabling it to feed in deeper waters than its closer relatives. It is smaller than our common Lapwing with a light brown clean plumage with a white tail contrasting with the black primaries which give a black stripe along its side. In flight it is at its most spectacular with black and white wings and those bright yellow legs trailing behind.

The editor's Spotted Flycatcher successfully fledged their four young and the female is now sitting on a new nest close to the previous one. Two broods is quite normal and hopefully this pair can raise a further three or four young which will be a great achievement.