Chobham Common
28th June 2003
It was a sunny and warm afternoon when we set out. The M25 was very slow although all 12 of us reached Chobham Common within 10 minutes of our proposed time.
We left the cars and walked across the common. The first bird that we saw was a nuthatch. We continue on our way and had good views of male and female Stonechat, followed by Dartford Warblers that perched on the tops of small shrubs and trees giving me my best ever views of this bird.
There was not a great variety of species although the good numbers of Stonechat and Dartford Warbler made up for this.
We left the common at about 6.30pm to go for a pub meal which all agreed was very good.
We returned to the common at about eight thirty, and retraced our steps to the area where we again saw lots of Stonechat, Dartford Warbler and Tree Pipit.
We wandered further into the common to where we hoped to see Woodcock and Nightjar. After waiting for quite a while we were rewarded with a pair of Woodcock roding, their first pass being just over our heads.
A Nightjar was heard to churr, followed by excellent views of this bird as it flew past, the markings and white spots on its wings and tail identifying it as a male. It perched on a tree, a short distance from us and began to churr again. This bird passed us once more flying slowly close to where we were standing.
As it was now getting quite dark we returned to our cars.
This was a great afternoon/evening outing from both the social side and the birds we saw. I would like to thank all who attended for making this trip thoroughly enjoyable and memorable.
Dave Jones