A Bat, a Beetle and a Goatsucker

Last night (Tuesday) saw Terry and Catherine make yet another visit to Canford Heath where 2 more juveniles Nightjars were caught.



A classic Age 3 wing (a bird of this year)
The plumage being all fresh and the secondaries showing the lovely orange arrowheads at the tips.

A visit on Sunday 1st September also resulted in 1 juvenile, this is 6 juveniles in the last week, with much of the heath not having been covered, suggesting that Nightjars have fledged a good number of young and therefore 2013 being a pretty successful year. This is great news since the last two summers have been so dire, horrendous weather and major lack of insects would have certainly taken its toll on these mystical birds. A proper summer was certainly well and truly called for this year and a tonic for all I think.



A cracking Sunset over the heath

The night of the 1st also produced a Bat, which looked interesting as was not one of the commoner Bats, a look at the photos the next day identified it as a Bechsteins, a rare Bat indeed and a great record. In addition to this a Beetle was also discovered, that was obviously a Longhorn but was very large and not something we were familiar with. This too was not common, though not rare either, it is called a Tanner Beetle and from literature read, it suggests its confined to the southern part of the UK where it is local, it is the largest of the UK native Longhorn and also one of Europe's stoutest, great stuff and another good record for the heath.



Tanner Beetle (male) one of Europe's stoutest longhorns.