Myself and two of our volunteers led a guided walk last night, looking for all things crespuscular and nocturnal, and we had a good evening. We couldn't find a barn owl, but remarkably, whilst we were watching a few pipistrelle bats (55s according to the bat detector) charging around in front of the hanger viewpoint, a nightjar flew past. It must have been within 10m of us all - stunning.
One of the biggest 'site rarities' of recent times has been a knot, which has been here since Sunday. Knots are almost exclusively found on coastal sites, so one turning up inland is very unusual, althought it looked quite at home feeding on the mud with the other passage waders (ruff, dunlin, green sandpipers, common sandpipers etc). As I heard it flying around as it got dark last night , I was surprised it was still here this morning. Yellow wagtails, whinchats and wheatears are passing through the site still and at least one, possibly two marsh harriers were seen today on the Amberley brooks. Finally, the first few wigeon of the winter arrived overnight - a party of about six were present on the north brooks this morning.