Crepuscular Birding

A late evening visit to Chobham Common with Paul and Brendan. A very warm but fairly overcast evening. We arrived at about 21:00 and we heard our first Nightjar churring fairly quietly about 21:25. Shortly after this we heard and then saw our first Woodcock of the evening. We heard several more Nightjars churring but they proved very difficult to see. Eventually myself and Paul had a half distant view of a Nightjar but unfortunately Brendan couldn't connect. Whilst searching for Nightjars we managed to see at least 4 more Woodcock. The Nightjars were much quieter and less active than in our previous visits to Chobham. Maybe something to do with the overcast conditions? It is appeared to me that there were less flies on the wing than on previous visits. We spent some time trying to get better views or in Brendan's case any view at all. We decided to head back to the car park and as we got closer we could hear a Nightjar churring away and apparently closer than any we had heard that evening. We made our way up onto the mound where the Monument is sited and almost straight away a Nightjar flew all around and over the top of us. A nice end to our evening.