18 members of the Alton Natural History society had a successful visit to Kingsley Common at dusk on 24 May.
When I did a brief recce in advance, I found that there seemed to have been a significant hatch of mayflies, with many flying over the heath.
This Cormorant was on the pond...
The first Nightjar started churring remarkably early at 19:45 - well before sunset. Later we recorded the presence of at least 4 in total with two churring birds, and 3 flying together often close to where we were standing.
It was a fine but fairly cold evening - churring was somewhat limited with birds more involved in flying, issuing their brief flight call. We also heard wing clapping.
A small supporting cast added to the interest: a Woodcock flew over a couple of times. We could hear a distant cuckoo initially from the Broxhead (SE) direction then later more from the south west. A distant Peacock was also calling somewhere to the north.
