Grey Nightjar

Amazing Grey Nightjar!

by Craig Brelsford
Founder, shanghaibirding.com

This year I have been focusing less on photographing birds and more on classic birdwatching. I have learned birds more quickly but sometimes miss the creativity that comes with photography. On Sat. 17 Oct., I returned to photography with a Grey Nightjar. I was on Lesser Yangshan Island, Zhejiang, China.

Grey Nightjar
Photographing a roosting Grey Nightjar is like photographing a rock. The bird doesn’t move. It’s therefore possible to get incredible close-ups. In this image, I aimed for as much detail as possible on the head. I wanted to illustrate the way in which the nightjar’s head is exquisitely designed for camouflage and insect-catching. Look at the bristles around the bill! (Craig Brelsford)

I was walking alone and noticed the nightjar resting on a bamboo pole. It was hiding in plain sight; a few minutes before, I’d passed that site and failed to see the nightjar. I crawled through brush to within 6.5 m of the bird. The goatsucker took little notice of me, never moving except to open its eye a little.

The moments with the nightjar filled me with pleasure. For those 20 minutes while I took the shots, there was nothing else in the world except this usually mysterious and elusive, now completely accessible and photographable, nightjar. I admired the beauty of the nightjar and the efficiency of its design. This caprimulgid is a flying piece of bark and leaf litter, a creature designed to hide by day, relying on its near-perfect camouflage, and at dusk devour flying insects. The long bristles around its tiny bill are the tools it uses to feed.

Featured image: Grey Nightjar Caprimulgus jotaka. Nikon D3S, VR 600mm F/4G, F/14, 1/20, ISO 640, using mirror-up + cable and with camera mounted on Manfrotto MVH502AH video head and Manfrotto MT055CXPRO3 carbon fiber tripod. (Craig Brelsford)

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Craig Brelsford

Craig Brelsford is the founder of shanghaibirding.com. Brelsford lived in Shanghai from 2007 to 2018. Now back home in Florida, Brelsford maintains close ties to the Shanghai birding community and continues his enthusiastic development of this website. When Brelsford departed China, he was the top-ranked eBirder in that country, having noted more than 930 species. Brelsford was also the top-ranked eBirder in Shanghai, with more than 320 species. Brelsford’s photos of birds have won various awards and been published in books and periodicals and on websites all over the world. Brelsford’s Photographic Field Guide to the Birds of China, published in its entirety on this website, is the most Shanghai-centric field guide ever written. Brelsford is a graduate of the University of Florida and earned a master's in business administration at the University of Liege, Belgium.

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