Habitat and Distribution
It is a late migrant, seldom appearing before the end of April or beginning of May. It occurs throughout northern and central Europe, and winters in Africa, as far south as the Cape.
In southern Europe, and the warmer parts of Africa and Asia, it is replaced by other members of the nightjar family. In Great Britain and Ireland it occurs in many suitable localities, but in the Shetlands and other northern islands it is only known as an occasional migrant. It is a priority species in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. The Irish population has declined significantly in recent years.
Open heathy wastes, Lowland heath, bracken-covered slopes and open woods are the haunts of the crepuscular Nightjar.
Read more about this topic: European Nightjar
Famous quotes containing the words habitat and/or distribution:
“Nature is the mother and the habitat of man, even if sometimes a stepmother and an unfriendly home.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
“The man who pretends that the distribution of income in this country reflects the distribution of ability or character is an ignoramus. The man who says that it could by any possible political device be made to do so is an unpractical visionary. But the man who says that it ought to do so is something worse than an ignoramous and more disastrous than a visionary: he is, in the profoundest Scriptural sense of the word, a fool.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)