The Goat-Sucker - Caprimulgus europaeus

No, I'm not talking about cryptozoology. So sorry, this is not a story about the Chupacabra monster, also called the Goatsucker. Nor is it about new swearing words or strange sexual obsessions. It's about nightjars and other nocturnal birds.


The European nightjar Caprimulgus europaeus, bears in many countries a name that's related to the sucking of goats. Goatsucker, what a strange name, isn't it? Does it really suck goats? No, they prey on large insects. The name goes back to ancient Greek times and is based on folklore. Nightjars are active from dusk till dawn. The birds can sometimes be found near catle, probably because the cows and goats flush large insects, which the nightjars eat. Mysterious birds, night active and in the neighbourhood of goats... what would you think? Off course: they must be drinking the milk of the goats and make them sick.


Nightjars and the combination with the landscape in which they live, leave a mystical impression. If you go to the right places (moorland, forest clearings, heathlands) in the right time of the year (they are summer residents and migrate in winter to Africa) you might be able to find one. Numbers are increasing in the Netherlands, so your chances of seeing one will also increase. When the sun sets and night comes, you hear a churring sound*, first coming from far and flowing over the moorland. It is not monotonous, the churring changes a bit in highth and slowly you get hypnotised. It's a pleasant feeling, the temperature is warm for a night, moth are flying around you and you dream away. Then you hear a "sqeek" sound * and then a rolling and a bit gutteral "kroo...kroo..kroo". All of a sudden you're out of your dreams, the bird flies above your head. Fantastic! If you're really lucky you can also hear them clapping their wings. I'm not sure how this "kroo..kroo.. kroo" sound is produced, it might be made with the wings, you can hear it at the end of this recording: http://waarneming.nl/sound_details.php?id=902. The males have a white patch on their underwing, probably used in courtship. It is said the males strongly react on white objects. I'm not so sure about this. I still lively remember an episode of Bill Oddie goes wild, where Bill Oddie runs over the moor with his white handkerchief, without succes... We however did try the white object trick with a white shirt and it seemed to work, we got a nice view of a bird flying over our heads, so it might be worth trying!

Tonight we (Ben, Reinder, Luuk and me) left for a long trip. On the programme were Common Quail Coturnix coturnix, European Nightjar Caprimulgus europaeus, Corncrake Crex crex, Baillon's crake Porzana pusilla, Spotted crake Porzana porzana, and with some luck maybe some owls. Apart from the Corncrake, we got them all. It was a nice night, and also Luuk's birthday, which we celebrated at midnight. The evening started with Common quail. When we arrived at the place where we hoped to hear them, there was no activity at all. When we gave up hope and just wanted to go, we heard a bird calling from a ryefield. We heard the "wet my lips" call *. We waited for about half an hour when we suddenly saw a bird crossing a path between a grassfield and the ryefield! My first real sighting of a quail ever. All my other birds were only on sound. That was a good start! We even saw one flying, which is a rare sight, since they are reluctant to fly. Even when they are flushed, they prefer to crawl away under the vegetation in stead of flying. They do however fly over large distances: they migrate to Africa in winter.
(I made the drawings of the nightjar and the quail, since I couldn't get pictures this night. I also don't want to take too many pictures, since you sometimes have to be careful putting too much effort in getting a picture while you should actually enjoy the birds you are watching!)

We decided to go on and searched for a good spot for nightjars. We didn't have an exact location, but the area looked suited. When we were waiting for the nightjars, we got a magnificent sighting of a hunting Long-eared Owl Asio otus. I had never seen a Long-eared owl like this, in the back we heard it's young calling. A couple of hundred calling Natterjacks Bufo calamita (toads), blurred the first nightjar. Then when we walked on, we heard the nightjar better and got to see it. Beautiful birds with their strange jarring sound (they get their common name from this jarring in the night), their long wings and tail and their rather slow flight. There were at least two birds calling at this location.

We left the area and headed for the Baillon's crakes. Luuk and Ben hadn't been there this year, for me and Rein it was the second time this week. But it was Luuk's birthday so we didn't care. We tried a Corncrake but weren't succesfull. Tired, but still hungry for more species, we got a nice Little owl and ended the night with a Spotted crake (we heard it's call, which sounds like a whip). Birding by night, fantastic experiences, but it's a shame you always get so tired of these fanatic tours.

* The churring, the "Squeek" and the "wet my lips" soundrecordings can be found on Latvian Birding: http://www.putni.lv/index_balsis_eng.htm

Creatures of the night - Baillon's Crake

Learn to reverence night and to put away the vulgar fear of it, for, with the banishment of night from the experience of man, there vanishes as well a religious emotion, a poetic mood, which gives depth to the adventure of humanity. - Henry Beston - *


Last night we (Rein Genuït, Remco Hofland and I) did some nocturnal birding. Birds at night is something completely different from birds by daylight. It's a whole new dimension, which I discovered about 10 years ago, when I helped as a ringing assistent on a project for Corncrakes Crex crex. First of all you have to get used to the fact that there's no or hardly any light. Your eyes are useless, it's your ears that count! Although this looks obvious, it took me some time to get used to this idea. Even up to now, you can find me wearing my binoculars by night, even when it's pitchdark and impossible to see anything. I'm probably still in denial...

Our main goal this night, was to hear some of the recently reported Baillon's crakes Porzana pusilla. Baillon's crakes are beautiful birds, but they are very hard to see, at least in the Netherlands they are. If people see one, it is often a glimpse, like in this youtube movie:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=08GJg8MxpPI

You have better chances at night. You won't see them but you will hear them. Their calling activity is higher at night, like most raills. I never saw a Baillon's crakes and they are rare in the Netherlands: Between 1800 and 1997 there were at least 93 sightings in the Netherlands (but I wouldn't be surprised if numbers of sightings were higher). In 2005 there were at least two confirmed succesfull breeding attempts (where young birds have been seen) in "Polder Achteraf" and in the "Nieuwe Keverdijkse Polder". This was the first time since 1972 that breeding was confirmed.

Apart from the confirmed breeding records in 2005, there are a few historic reports of breeding Baillon's crakes in the Netherlands (about 15 between 1863 and 1972) and I think I have also heard of eggs and nests in old English museum collections that were once collected in the Netherlands. At the time these eggs and nests must have been collected there were not as many people concerned with birds as nowadays but still they managed to collect nests and eggs of this illusive species. These old records (if they really do exist and if they are correctly tagged) might therefore suggest that Baillons crakes used to be a commoner breeder in the Netherlands. Baillon's crakes are of least concern according to IUCN criteria, they have a large distribution in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. The African and Australian population is resident, the European and Asian population are migratory. Although the world's population is probably large, there's to my opinion a need for more research. The migration routes and the population size is not well known. This bird is one of the least known birds in Europe, mainly due to it's illusive lifestyle. The European population is very scattered and as far as I know they are nowhere abundant. The population may have declined, and if so, it is probably due to habitat destruction. They are very illusive in their breeding territories and are maybe commoner than we think because birds get overlooked. On the other hand, their calls can sometimes be confusingly similar to frogs or a Garganey, so some of the identifications from the past might be wrong and numbers could be even lower. Beaman and Madge for example, warn in their book "the Handbook of Bird identification for Europe and the Western Palearctic" for published sound recordings of this species that were in fact recordings of frogs!

If you like to read more about them, this site is a good starter'and off course Wikipedia.


We heard the two of the reported birds of Polder Achteraf in Breukelveen in the province of Utrecht. It was a strange experience, standing there at night, in the middle of nowhere with your hands behind your ears to be able to listen even better, with about ten other birdwatchers. We heard frogs everywhere, two grasshopper warblers, a Mole cricket and a Waterrail and then we heard the Baillon's crakes callinig. Apart from the joy of listening to this species (for Rein it was even a lifer), we also came to hear the specific calls these birds were making. They were not producing the usual male advertising calls *, but made a strange and interesting sound *. I recently found out through the Waarneming.nl forum that in 2005 some Dutch birdwatchers were confronted with a call they suspected to be of a Baillons crake, but nobody knew for sure if it was really that species. They recorded the sound* and when they played back the call, all of a sudden a Baillon's Crake showed up, they were even able to film the bird. They had lured the bird with the sound they had recorded and were able to pin this sound to the species. At least in 2005, 2007 and this year the same call was heard at Polder Achteraf (it was also recorded and compared to the Friesian recordings). Rumours are, these calls might be of female birds, but this needs to be confirmed. There's still so much for us to discover, especially in birdsounds and most of all in nocturnal birdsounds!

I ended this night with a Savi's warbler singing on my newly discovered local patch and with two very nice Hedgehogs of which this is one:


* (I'm not so much into quotes, I'll be honest to you, I got the Henry Beston quote through this website: http://www.quotegarden.com/ To be even more honest, I'm always a bit annoyed about those webpages that start with quotes. So my humble excuses to the people who feel te same. But I liked this one and since I didn't have many pictures and since I had to start with something I fell in the trap and used it anyway.... so I wouldn't be surprised if you'll find more quotes on my blog in the future... )



*The soundrecording of the "strange and intersting sound" of a Baillonscrake was recorded on the 1st of June 2008 by Mathias Ritschard and can be found on the http://dutchbirding.nl/ website. Click in the left menu on "sound gallery" and search in the gallery for Baillons crake ("kleinst waterhoen" in Dutch).


*The sound recording of a usual male advertising call was made by Teus Luijendijk on 22nd of June 2004 and can be found on the http://dutchbirding.nl/ website. Click in the left menu on "sound gallery" and search in the gallery for Baillons crake ("kleinst waterhoen" in Dutch)


*The soudrecoring of 2005 is from Dusan Brinkhuizen and can be found on the http://dutchbirding.nl/ website. Click in the left menu on "sound gallery" and search in the gallery for Baillons crake ("kleinst waterhoen" in Dutch)

European Scops Owl (Otus scops)

It was 11.00 p.m. when I got the first telephone call, I didn't even noticed it. The second and third call came by 11.15 p.m. The calls were made by two brothers and great friends. I wasn't very disturbed since they are able to call me for almost any small thing in the middle of the night. Probably a mouse, or a young Tawny owl or maybe they were playing some kind of practical joke on me... I was tired and decided to call them back tomorrow. Then, when I got the fourth call by another birder (Rein), I knew things were serious. When I picked up the phone he told me there was a European Scops owl calling at only 10 kilometres from my home! Amazing, but was it really this species? And how did I get there?

I was suspicious: two years ago some of my friends made the classical mistake in identifying nocturnal nature sounds. They mistakenly took the sound of a Midwife toad Alytes obstetricans for an European Scops Owl. How could you mistaken the sound of an owl with that of a toad, I hear you think? Well, the sounds are very similar and I must admit there were also some extenuating circumstances:
-When they heard the sound, they just returned from a long night of birdwatching and were very tired,
-they weren't aware of a feral population of Midwife toads which was close to the location of the discovered sound, no excuse off course ;-)
-There were a couple of toads present. This made the sound look as if it was moving: One toad could be calling for a few minutes, fell quiet and another toad 10 meters away would start calling.
-They saw something flying (whatever it was, it probably wasn't a scops owl...)

The sighting fooled experienced Dutch birdwatchers, even people who had experience with both species (toad and owl) abroad, so be aware! The next day, the truth was revealed, when we arrived, we saw a nice midwife toad walking through the grass in the sandy dune, although it wasn't a Scops owl, I liked it anyway since I had never seen an adult Midwife toad before. I've heard (I'm not sure whether it is just rumours or whether it is really true), that there are apparently even Birdsound cd's with recordings of Midwife toads in stead of the Scops owl (the species they claim to have recorded), so even learning from cd's might give you the wrong ID. The picture is from that second day, photographer is Maarten Wielstra. If you want to learn more about confusingly similar animal sounds, read this interesting article:
Insect, Amphibian or Bird? British bird, 77, No. 3, March 1984
(link will only work for a week, after that period, you have to search for it in a library or subscribe to British Birds)

So what about this new sighting? News spread quickly and within a few minutes transport was arranged. I got another phone call, a sleepy voice at the other end of the line: "Hi, they called me out of bed, I'm putting on my clothes now and I'll be at your place as soon as possible. It was hard to explain to my girlfriend, she'll probably never understand it, but I was able to get her car anyway. Be ready!"
Then another phone call of a friend (Maarten) who was already at the spot: "Wouter, it's the real thing!!" he said. I could even hear the bird calling through the telephone. When we arrived, there were about 30 people present. Mainly local birdwatchers. It looked ridiculous: 30 people, mainly men, staring with their binoculars in the dark, talking with lowered voices and pointing with their microphones to a ...tree...
No pictures this time, but this is what we heard:
http://waarneming.nl/sound_details.php?id=850
A fantastic scops owl! Apparently the bird was already present since the 12th of May. Residents heard already for a couple of days some kind of alarm... So it's not only Midwife toads that can be confusing.

The next day there were a little more people than the 30 I described above... About 300 (!) people came to visit the Scops Owl:




The European Scops Owl breeds in Southern Europe, North Africa and parts of Asia. In the Netherlands there are about 7 previous records of which 3 were found dead and 2 were caught. This was only the second twitchable bird for the Netherlands, the last twitchable bird was already ten years ago, so it is still a true vagrant. However it is a species that's supposed to benefit from Global warming and it is thought to expand it's breeding territory northwards. So maybe we can expect this species more often in the oncoming years.