Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes

Who said that? James Fisher, the Simon King of his day. TV presenter, author and ornithologist extraordinaire, who died in 1970.

No, he was not talking from experience. He was merely saying that tasty birds, like mammals, need camouflage.

Look at this nightjar on her nest among the bracken and dead leaves of the heathland. She has to sit very still during daylight hours, relying on the greys, browns, black and white speckles to break up the outline of her body.

Even the grey tail and wings have been cut into tiny pieces by black stripes and crossing lines.

The big black eye will be almost closed as she hides but when open it has been given the stripe treatment that a lot of birds enjoy to make it look like something else.

No wonder famous artists such as Edward Seago were employed by the Ministry of Defence to interpret nature's colours into our own camouflage for aircraft and trucks, buildings and runways during the Second World War.

Nightjars nest in several places throughout Sussex. A male comes to sing quite often in an ash tree next to my house. I generally hear him striking up his queer rattle about May 4 each year and he sings at dusk and dawn into July then flies back to Africa in mid-August.

The other day I took people to hear this strange song, and one chap who had never before heard a nightjar sing said he would have thought it to be some sort of big cricket.

Then we saw the male fly off its song post on the end of a long dead oak branch and fly around. Some people were surprised at the odd shape the bird has. It looked like one of those simple cardboard gliders children can throw about inside the house.

It plainly shows the nightjar's family, which is with the swifts. It is in fact a great big swift, with narrow wings and a huge 'gape' or mouth opening, like a whale.

Not much beak, but a big moth will vanish as quick as Jonah did into the mouth of the whale.

People thought nightjars sucked milk from goats, hence the name goatsucker. All they were after was the flies and mosquitoes swarming round the udders.

A Victorian ornithologist called Gould shot a nightjar in India to prove to the natives the birds were not taking the milk. I expect it went into the museum, not on the menu.

This feature appeared in the West Sussex Gazette July 9 2008. To read it first, buy the West Sussex Gazette every Wednesday.