Well I have had a response from the National Trust regarding the lamping of Nightjars, and it seems that although every single person I have spoken to is appalled at the behaviour, the NT seem to think that it is acceptible.
Here are some snippets from their reply to me.....
Re the use of powerful torches to view them, I know that the group rarely use them, preferring to view without torches, or to use normal hand torches on clear evenings. I believe that, as with most nights this year, the weather forecast was for poor weather with dull evening skies, so they felt that they would get better results by trying the more powerful torches on this occasion.
The evening was one of the warmest clearest nights of the year with zero cloud cover. (Someone has been telling porkies)
Again I think there is no evidence that this infrequent use has or will cause disturbance of the nightjars at XXXXX.
I wonder how easy it is to fly with a million watt light in your eyes?
I am informed that torching is the standard method used for recording some of the world’s rarest Nightjar species in the Middle East .
Maybe this is for the good of the birds and their continued success rather than simply allowing a bunch of wildlife novices to clock the birds.
We get a number of requests from bird groups to visit the Nightjar sites each year which we usually grant, so to err on the side of caution we can suggest to these groups when they make contact that we don’t encourage the use of powerful torches. This will lessen the potential frequency of this practice and I hope alleviate your concerns
Great, this is a result, although demanding that they don't use them would be better.
I can assure you that those members of the XXXXX Bird Group whom you recognised are conservation minded birdwatchers who would not hold with inappropriate behaviour.
Their behaviour was inappropriate.
Not what I expected but maybe something might nudge the consciences of the people involved.
Here are some snippets from their reply to me.....
Re the use of powerful torches to view them, I know that the group rarely use them, preferring to view without torches, or to use normal hand torches on clear evenings. I believe that, as with most nights this year, the weather forecast was for poor weather with dull evening skies, so they felt that they would get better results by trying the more powerful torches on this occasion.
The evening was one of the warmest clearest nights of the year with zero cloud cover. (Someone has been telling porkies)
Again I think there is no evidence that this infrequent use has or will cause disturbance of the nightjars at XXXXX.
I wonder how easy it is to fly with a million watt light in your eyes?
I am informed that torching is the standard method used for recording some of the world’s rarest Nightjar species in the Middle East .
Maybe this is for the good of the birds and their continued success rather than simply allowing a bunch of wildlife novices to clock the birds.
We get a number of requests from bird groups to visit the Nightjar sites each year which we usually grant, so to err on the side of caution we can suggest to these groups when they make contact that we don’t encourage the use of powerful torches. This will lessen the potential frequency of this practice and I hope alleviate your concerns
Great, this is a result, although demanding that they don't use them would be better.
I can assure you that those members of the XXXXX Bird Group whom you recognised are conservation minded birdwatchers who would not hold with inappropriate behaviour.
Their behaviour was inappropriate.
Not what I expected but maybe something might nudge the consciences of the people involved.
