NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

It was the 18th-century French philosopher Voltaire who said that you must "cultivate your own garden" - in other words, if you conduct your life in a nurturing and productive way, and be able to ignore how others are looking after theirs, then you will be playing your part in trying to make the world a happier and more fulfilling place. I am increasingly trying to follow this ethos in the way that I conduct my natural history study. If I can try and act responsibly in the light of climate change then, even though my small efforts will make not a halfpenny of difference on their own, if everybody else followed suit then my actions would be part of a greater good - so, the car increasingly stays at home; I walk as much as I can; local birding is the number one choice; importance is attached to the sharing of my results as a way to encourage others to do likewise. I could do so much more to 'cultivate my garden' - we are a three car family; I still eat meat and dairy; I...

After a few months of being unable to upload images on Blogger I have finally found a solution and can now post with the addition of photographic excellence (or dodgy bridge camera efforts) to brighten up the dull wordage - just in time for the first monthly round-up of 2025. But before that, below are a few images that I was keen to share last year but found myself unable to do so. In September (22nd) I was staying at Dungeness Bird Observatory when word went out that Dave Bunney had discovered a Western Bonelli's Warbler in his garden. After a brief dash across the shingle we were soon watching this most subtle beauty, a concoction of silky white and lime-green. It remained in the garden for all-comers to see but was not present the following morning. The locals were right - any warbler in Dave's garden never stays for more than a day - and what a tremendous list of warblers this modest patch of greenery boasts. Beats the four species that I can claim! The Bonelli's Warbl...

Last week saw the publication of the Surrey Rare Plant Register, a work that has been long in planning and execution. Jointly funded by the Surrey Botanical Society (SBS), the Surrey Wildlife Trust and the late Jean Combes OBE, it is a soft back book some 280 pages thick. Being a member of the SBS and a contributor to the project I could be accused of bias, but it is a truly first-class publication. Way back at the turn of the millennium there was an upturn in my Surrey botanical recording, mainly due to long periods of ill-health and the need (and want) to stay closer to home. In between visits to hospital I would force myself out onto the streets and nearby footpaths to identify and record the plants that I found there - it was educational and oh so helpful in keeping up my spirits as well as maintaining a level of fitness - sometimes I'd forget myself and end up walking miles regardless of my precarious health! These results were then uploaded onto the MapMate database where the...

LEGACY: the long-lasting impact of your actions on others... I will soon reach a significant age, one that will allow me to claim a state pension and a free bus pass. Apart from greyer hair and a narrower band of hearing range it has also brought with it a certain amount of navel gazing: what did I do to get to where I am today, what have I done with that time and what - if anything - will I leave behind after I have gone? They are thoughts that are not unusual as we grow older. The answer to such questions are easier and more obvious if we have a family - any surviving partner, child or sibling will have their own memories of you that one hopes will be positive, that there will be some elements of your life that has informed them, touched them or even warned them off from replicating. Friends might be able to recall amusing anecdotes that you were involved in over a beer or a pot of tea. But as far as this post is concerned I am more interested in the afterlife of my natural history i...

I'm pretty sure that most of us measure our lives in blocks of time, based around the calendar year. I know I do. Always have done. There's something cathartic about December 31st giving way to January 1st, a cleansing of negatives which are now going to be turned into positives - at least, that is the hope. And this is no more true than when it comes to our natural history recording - think year lists, resolutions, plans - all that scheming and plotting that bouys us up during the dark nights of early winter. When I used to year list (some time way back when, before mobile phones and the internet) I would forgo an alcoholically infused New Year's Eve to ensure that I was out of the door, pre-dawn, on New Year's Day, ready to add species to the brand new notebook (always a brand new notebook), to start to populate that shiny new year's list. Madness really, rushing around celebrating each species even though I'd seen most of them 24-hours previously... What of n...

My plans were thrown into disarray on September 30th - I had hoped to stay on at Dungeness Bird Observatory well into mid-October, but a staff member fell ill with a nasty bout of Covid, so I thought it best to return home. As much as it was disappointing to miss out on more 'shingle time' it at least gave me the chance to do a bit of Uber-patch vis-migging, something that I am quite partial to. So, Colley Hill beckoned on October 3rd which happily coincided with a flock of seven Ring Ouzels that were inadvertently flushed from scarp-top scrub, with one female/imm staying behind to allow close, if partially hidden, observation. The nearby farm fields at Mogador were full of brassica, enticing at least 110 Skylark to linger within the crop. I returned to Colley Hill the following day ( 4th ) which was blessed with a mad 30-minute spell which saw two Great White Egret fly north, a Woodlark alight on the open sward before heading west and a single Hawfinch fly right past my head -...