Nightjar Sighting

I love these birds, but this is the first time I have seen one and clearly identified it up here.

Supposedly not distributed up here, but we both laid eyes on it with binoculars and for a decent length of time.

Curses for not having a long lens to get a shot, but it is less than a mile away so I reckon I will get another go.

Don't know if it is my age, but bird watching is becoming a distraction.

Anyone else?

Yep, since I was about 8 years old, so nothing to do with age in my case, never seen a Nightjar though. I did cause a bit of a twitcher stampede down by the Thames in Chertsey a few years ago after spotting a Hoopoe there.

Amazing bird!

Yes, not an easy one to misidentify

I spend most days dodging game birds.

Not like One Direction.

My favourite birds are usually short lived thanks to shooters and cars.

We have a colony of pigeons living in the trees adjacent to our house. The local Sparrowhawk is having a great time chasing them around and nobbling them. Spectacular aerobatics from the prey and predator

Two buzzards in the fields behind us, they sometimes sit and chill on our conifers, they're surprisingly big up close. My best ever 'neighbours' were a pair of tawny owls at our old house a few years ago, they brought their offspring into our garden to feed and were constantly skimming our skylights in slo-mo.
For the anoraks: Last year I rescued a live water rail from one of the cats, no idea where from. A twitcher friend was rather jealous that I'd been so 'intimate' with it

Used to go out on Upton Heath (near Poole) Nightjar spotting when I lived down there. Never seen any in Lincolnshire though.
We've started getting red kites round here and had one fly over the house a couple of weeks ago, thought it was a buzzard at first then it turned and came closer and was unmistakeable - fantastic bird. Often see one on one of our off-road routes as well.

We can't move for kites up here! Magical birds. Ospreys, golden and one or two sea eagles too in varying numbers. My favourite sight is a barn owl by moonlight. One recent trip up to Caithness brought us a minke whale, orcas, dolphins, three species of deer, gazillions of game birds, raptors including a pair of golden eagles soaring at eye level off a mountain road and an adder. All in one day!

It is like a massive wildlife park really.

Wow - that's amazing (I'm guessing you don't live in Birmingham then )
When I first moved to Lincs, buzzards were rare but are now increasingly common. Still great to see them and I always stop to look (well, obviously not if I'm driving :facepalm: )
We get tawnies hunting the college field at the back of our house in winter and have had a barn owl out there a few times. A sparrowhawk conducts kamikaze hunting missions flying low & fast the other side of the fence before popping up and over into the garden collecting some poor unsuspecting sparrow at speed.
Deer also a lot more common now, especially the muntjac.
I love early drives to work over the Lincolnshire Wolds - we get quite a few barn owls and it's a privilege to see them hunting. So beautiful and so graceful.
As for sealife well, we get lots of seals along the coast plus the VERY common wind turbine which is breeding both on and off land

Not seen a golden eagle round here yet - possibly not quite mountainous enough