Common Nighthawk in Oxfordshire!

Tuesday 27th September 2022.

Another good mixture of moth species this morning. 

A partly cloudy morning with a bit of drizzle in the air and cool, roughly 10 degrees, but comfortable enough to check the moth box early this morning just before 7am. Nothing new again this morning for the year, but a healthy number of moths that included 4 Angle Shades and a Turnip Moth representing the migrants and Lesser Yellow Underwing being the most numerous species. 52 moths of 16 species were recorded this morning.

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From top to bottom: Lesser Yellow Underwing, Angle Shades & Lunar Underwing.

Moths present this morning included the following:

• 11 Lesser Yellow Underwing
• 7 Large Yellow Underwing
• 5 Lunar Underwing
• 6 Square-spot Rustic
• 4 Angle Shades
• 3 Feathered Ranunculus
• 4 Pale Mottled Willow
• 1 Vines Rustic
• 1 Double-striped Pug 
• 2 L-album Wainscot
• 1 Turnip Moth
• 1 Shuttle-shaped Dart
• 1 Willow Beauty
• 1 Beautiful Plume
• 1 Common Plume
• 2 Tachystola acroxantha
• 1 White-shouldered House Moth

Not many moving birds overhead, with just a few Meadow Pipits trickling through. Yesterday, an incredible record of a Common Nighthawk, a North American species of Nightjar, was found perched on a back garden fence in Wantage, Oxfordshire; which set all ‘twitchers’ and local birders scrambling to get a view of the bird. As expected, a £10 entrance fee was required to view the bird, which seems quite the norm now to see a ‘mega’ rarity.

The Common Nighthawk on a garden fence yesterday in Wantage, Oxfordshire. A big thank you to Patrick Earith who allowed me to use his superb photo of the bird on my Blog.   

I was not surprised that it was not present this morning and begs the question, check your garden thoroughly in future! You never know! One of the ‘Lazee Birders’ had some Redwing over his house last night, so I shall be keeping an ear open during the week. Last night, I checked out the planet Jupiter through my telescope. Apparently, it was the closest to earth for many years and quite impressive through my Swarovski scope where you could see two faint dark bands going across the planet and also the four moons were on show.