The Sherwood Forest Nightjar Project

All birds need to be able to hide themselves, their nests, eggs and young effectively from natural predators. This they do in a huge variety of interesting ways.

In the case of nightjars natural predators include mammals such as stoats and foxes; other birds such as crows and magpies, and adders. 

These species will all take eggs and young if they find them. This is what makes camouflage and cryptic colouration such a vital aspect of the biology of the nightjar. 

They have survived for millenia by being good at it. Look at the information in the 'Important note' below.

Part 1 

Look at each of the pictures on the right of the page. 

Decide in a group how these ordinary human activities could have a bad effect on the nightjar population (or the populations of other birds and animal for that matter). 

Look at the activities carefully and for each of them note down exactly how they could be harmful to wildlife, but particularly nightjars. Refer to your Nightjar Factfile to help with this.

Part 2

Question ...

In what ways could the building of a car park near to a heath 

be damaging to the wildlife of that area?

Work in a group to decide what the elements of the problem are and some kind of solution.