Superb late evening walk over Whiteley Pastures.

Wednesday 14th May 2025.

Andy and Matt wait patiently for the dusk birds to show.

Tonight, Andy Fisher, Emma and Matt Parkes met up over Whiteley Pastures to go ‘Nightjarring’ and so arriving at the usual parking site at 8pm, we made our way through the woods to the usual footpath. However, on arrival, I saw an interesting micro moth flying around and eventually it settled on some leaves and I discovered it was going to be my another moth ‘Lifer’ in the form of a moth called The Minister (Eulia ministrana). Apparently, a common woodland species. What a great start to the evening!

My first ever The Minister moth was found by where we parked. Below, a species of Click beetle called Melanotus. Apparently, there are many of this particular type of beetle, so I could not get a distinct species on this particular individual. It actually flew into Emma's ear!

As we made our way along the pathway to the songs of both Chiffchaff and Blackcap, we soon came across the beautiful song of a Nightingale deep inside the thicket to our north. It was too dense with vegetation to get a view of the bird and sadly, though we heard at least three possibly four singing Nightingales this evening, there were no sightings of the birds. Then a Nightjar briefly ‘churred’ on the opposite side of the footpath within the woodland and after around 20 minutes, the bird slowly flapped over our heads and out of view to where the Nightingale was still singing.

One of the Nightjars captured on film from Matts mobile phone.

It got better still when I saw my first Woodcock of the year flying low over the footpath and then out of view. But we didn't have to wait long to see not only one bird flying over our heads calling, but two birds were seen chasing each other and seen several times doing this. Matt had brought along his Merlin App which had picked up a distant Tawny Owl calling and after ten minutes or so, we all heard the Tawny Owl calling somewhere distantly at the back of the woods. Sadly, no sighting of the Owl, but one can have it on their year list as heard. So that was two ‘year-ticks’ for Hampshire for me tonight as we enjoyed one of the best evenings of the year. One of the Nightjars was captured on camera, with Matt filming it on his mobile and showing relatively well through the binoculars. A really good evening with the guys and not too cold either.