NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

2010. Not a great year for me if truth be told. So, with the last few hours of it remaining, I will not be too sorry to wave it bye-bye and as the day comes to a close welcome 2011, as it trundles towards us on that great conveyor belt called time. As all bloggers/naturalists, I have a few plans and goals for the coming year. I've already told you about the Beddington Sewage Farm botanical survey. The reason that I haven't let you in on the others is that, well, there aren't any. I'm going to let whatever comes my way happen, without any hurrying up on my part. I will continue to enjoy my local birding - this year has seen some truly memorable birds within ten miles of home (Ferruginous Duck, Quail, Hen Harrier, Waxwing, Mealy Redpoll and Common Crane). With patience and a bit of effort there should be more like that in the next twelve months. Beyond that, my only plan is to enjoy what I see and what I do, regardless of luck or a lack of it. It all evens itself out in t...

I'm already getting psyched up about 2011. Most of my plans revolve around Beddington SF (birding and botanically) although I certainly won't be neglecting Canons Farm - someone has to keep chasing Devil Birder's species total! Botany at Beddington will be quite an eye-opener for me. It is an area that has been botanised lightly in the past, although 'lightly' has entailed some highly competent botanists giving the place short bursts of 'grilling'. There are areas that have been untouched by pesticides and have a settled flora, and other areas in which the ground is perpetually disturbed, allowing only those opportunistic species to quickly get a toe-hold before being bulldozed back into the ground. I am expecting the unexpected - landfill will throw up plenty of aliens. Pictured above is Celery-leaved Buttercup, a feature of sludge lagoons on the farm. I will post regularly on next years findings...

A post-Christmas birdwatch was enjoyed at Beddington Sewage Farm today, myself already warm with the glow of enough calories on board to fuel the running of Dungeness 'C' reactor and happy with the England cricket teams continued demolition of Australia. On arrival it was obvious that the landfill site was operational, as thousands of gulls were present. After settling down, having had an hour or more scanning and also having walked across to the enclosed lagoons, the time came to estimate those numbers present. My gut reaction was to plump for a total larid mass of, lets say, seven or eight thousand individuals, based on nothing more than educated guesswork. However, when I tried to add a little bit of common sense to the process, it only helped to prove that my initial estimate was woefully short. I was quite happy to claim a fairly positive count of 375 Lesser Black-backed Gulls. So I used this as a starting point - a number not estimated but actually counted out, one gull a...

I haven't posted for almost a week, a long gap for me. So, I hear you ask, what have I been up to Steve? Not a lot actually. In fact, it's been bloody frustrating. First up is the snow. All the main roads are now clear, but the side roads in hilly Banstead are another matter. Then there's the lack of birding due to me having to work. I've been getting texts from plenty of local birders picking off Waxwings, Mealy Redpolls, Iceland Gulls, Firecrests - the list goes on. And when you are stuck in an office, sans any of that lot it can be quite depressing. Plus, the Perth test match didn't exactly fill me with the joys of the season either. However, there was good news. My wife spoiled me rotten and gave me a new mobile phone for my birthday (the one with an apple on it) and I immediately went to Bird Guides and downloaded the 'Birds of Northern Europe' app. I now spend most of my time playing the songs and calls of almost 400 species of bird. A great way to w...

Back in the first week of December, standing in snow, I scanned the horizon and something didn't quite seem right. After several minutes (it was cold, my brain was going-slow) I realised what was troubling me. I was looking at a wall of green - a line of oak trees, some two hundred metres in length, still in full leaf. Most of this leaf was still green in colour, with little bronze and sickly ochre on show. Since then I've paid attention to what trees are still in leaf. Oaks are still hanging on, as are Silver Birch and Sycamore. I cannot remember this from previous winters, although I may have overlooked it in the past. The skeletal tree branches on a winter horizon are still being muffled by leaf, and that, to me, is puzzling. This week in North Downs and beyond land : I've dipped on the Belmont Waxwings four times; it is snowing again; I have high hopes of a good flyover this weekend.

Waxwings, Waxwings everywhere. Down here they are easier to find than Greenfinches. Almost every blog that you visit will entertain you with images (yes Gavin, not photographs!) of the crested little fellas, all lined-up on a tree top like a group of Santa's elves. The only reason that I haven't uploaded any images (sorry Gav, really) of them is that I haven't taken any myself. Now, I usually rally against the ubiquitous on blogs. Every spring we parade pictures ( pictures - just for you Gavin) of Wheatears, violets and Brimstone butterflies as if we are the only bloggers who have thought of doing so. Therefore we all end up with a parade of sameness. However, with Waxwings it's different. Why? Is it because they a good looking? I don't think so. Bullfinches are good looking. So are Goldfinches, but we don't all get click happy with them, do we? Is it down to rarity? To a point, maybe, although they aren't really any rarer than a Common Redpoll this winter....

I stare at the computer screen and my fingers freeze above the keyboard. Nothing comes. There is nothing to say. No pictures of Waxwings and no pithy comment. Sorry...

We were having a chat at the University of Beddington the other day when the subject of bird photography came up. Now, the quality of the images that we see today are, on the whole, nothing short of incredible. Frame fillers, perfect feather detail and dots that can blow up to become perfectly identifiable species are now accepted as the norm. It's not like it used to be. However, we all agreed that these 'perfect' pictures can be a little too perfect. They somehow introduce us to the avian subject in such a way that we feel we are feasting our eyes on the bird with such familiarity that, even if we haven't actually seen it ourselves, we have! It's all too real. If you don't know what the hell I'm on about, think back to those old grainy black-and-white pictures that used to grace the annual rarities committee report in British Birds during the 1970s and early 1980s. They were generally of distant birds, not quite in perfect focus, a bit grainy, but maintai...

England have won the second Ashes test by an innings... Tottenham are playing in the Champions League tonight having already qualified for the knock-out stages... the Common Crane is still finding Beddington SF to its liking... and most importantly it's my youngest daughter's birthday...HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESS!

The London Natural History Society, that was formed in 1545 to enable King Henry VIII to keep tabs on his moth and beetle list, has always maintained the same recording area, that of all places within a twenty mile radius of St. Paul's Cathedral. This was pretty clever of those 16th century naturalists as construction of the cathedral was not started until 1675... Recently there have been a number of high profile birds that have had the bloody nerve of appearing in places that may be, or may not be, within the LNHS recording area. The most famous is the singing Savi's Warbler at Amwell Gravel Pits, which decided to confuse all comers by taking up position in a bush that stradled the invisible recording area boundary. Confusion reigned. I can exclusively reveal, via a source close to the LNHS hierarchy, that to stop such confusion in the future the society are going to ammend the recording area into one that is perfectly easy to see. As from January 1st 2012, and in celebration ...

There I was prostrate on the sofa, re-watching Series One of Mad Men with man flu as company when the communication system went into overload. Texts from Johnny Allan - 'Common Crane landed on lake at Beddington' - followed moments later by a phone call from David Campbell - "Are you going?" - convinced me to rise from my sick bed, Lazarus-like, and hotfoot it to the sewage farm. I collected David from his aborted Canons Farm stakeout and we arrived promptly at Beddington without any negative texts being received or accidents on the fast melting slush and ice. A brief jog onto site (yes, I can still run if prompted) saw us feasting our eyes upon a fine juvenile Common Crane (pictured above). It seemed in good condition and stayed for the rest of the day. This was a big bird for London and Surrey listers, the first truly twitchable wild one. Most of the Beddington crew were fairly blase about it (they had seen an adult fly over the farm back in the spring) and I ha...

A new blog appears in my list to the right of this post. The Crow Council has been set up by Alan Tilmouth, and comprises a group of hand-picked bloggers who are more broadsheet than red top, more bagette than sliced white loaf, more Melvyn Bragg than Paul O'Grady - you get the picture. They promise to take hold of a subject and put it through their collective wringer. First up: apprenticeship in birding.

Yes folks, the white stuff that our 'northern bloggers' have been telling us about has finally arrived amongst the pearly king and queens, Barbara Windsor and the Krays. Even the posh people sitting in their Barbour jackets had to put down their frappacino's to stare in amazement as flakes of whiteness, known locally as the 'northern ague', started to settle on the gold-paved streets. The 1cm deep drifts stopped traffic in its tracks, reminding us of the terrible winter storm of 2009 when several millimetres of snow ground London's airports to a three-month standstill. I can now reveal that, after several minutes of the worst London winter on record, there are 27 different words in the Cockney language for 'snow'...

Rarer than a Black Lark. More uncommon than a BirdForum thread with a cohesive outcome. Fewer occurances than Jonathan Woodgate in a Spurs shirt... That is, at approx 21.35hrs yesterday evening, I walked over to the bookshelf, reached up to the top shelf and took down a volume of Birds of the Western Palearctic. I then proceeded to open it and actually read from it. I have not done this for almost twenty years - and that is a genuine claim. The reason for me doing so was to find out the specific species of plant that Tree Sparrows ate seeds from, and, by and large, the great work had the information. I cannot help but feel that as nice as they look on the bookshelf (top left of picture) they were a waste of my money. Hooked in from the start (1977, £25 for volume one), I carried on until volume five and then decided that I could live without it. It was out of date before it was published and the artwork was a selection of the good, the bad and the ugly (Cusa's ducks anyone?) I did ...

The cold weather had frozen both of the lakes at Beddington this morning, but this state of affairs did mean that plenty of the gulls that were scavenging on the landfill came and stood on the ice for us to scan at leisure. Among them was this 4th winter Caspian Gull (not an adult as its bill is still showing some trace of immaturity.) The picture below shows how much darker the mantle colour is from the nearby Herring Gulls (the Caspian is to the right, facing away from us). The most numerous species was Black-headed, with at least 7,500 present, along with 350 Common and 50 Lesser Black-backed. Neither of the two Med Gulls seen during the week gave themselves up. Go on, even if you don't like gulls all that much, they do make a spectacle, and on a day like today when nothing much is moving, it is something to look through with the added bonus of a good chance of picking up the uncommon. I did miss 2 Waxwing that flew through south-eastwards. I was off checking a stream for Lit...

Is it because we want to share observations and ideas with other like-minded souls? Is it because we want to show off our prowess at what we do? Is it because we have a need to be a part of something greater than an individual? Is it because we need confirmation that what we do and think is normal? Is it because we need confirmation that what we do and think is quirky? Is it all of the above? And does it even matter... Do you have a stat counter? Do you check it religiously to see how many visitors your blog has received? Do you assess the quality of your posts by how many comments others leave? Do you comment on other bloggers posts and do you do so because you want to, or because it might result in them commenting on yours? Do you look at other bloggers posts and feel a sense of envy when they post top class material? Does it spur you on to improve or does it make you want to pack it up? Are you aware of who these other bloggers are? Would you recognise them ? Would you like them as ...

One element of twitching that seems to have disappeared is the rough sleeping. Now, it was never comfortable and it often involved more of the 'rough' than the 'sleeping', but never the less, it was taken on as a given part of the twitching ritual, which along with hitching, army surplus coats and Mars Bars made you what you were proud to be - a proper twitcher. During my brief affair with the genre, I slept rough regularly, mainly to save money but also to be 'on site' for a dawn raid on the bird. I therefore proudly announce my memorable rough moments, scored for your delectation and to be used as a guide to any tyros out there that may be contemplating spending time out in the elements. Walberswick Bus Shelter, Suffolk When: New Years Eve 1977 Conditions: Damp but mild Quality of sleep: Fairly good, due to copious amounts of beer downed in nearby pub. Drawbacks: need to get up for a wee on several occasions due to said beer. Bus shelter smelt of urine. Dru...

Dungeness. Shingle. Lighthouses and shacks. The White-tailed Plover is two miles to the north-west eating medicinal leeches. Dog's Mercury on a Surrey woodland floor wins my 'Best photograph of the year taken by Steve Gale' award, awarded to me by me after me voting for it. 2010 review? In November? Yes, I'm afraid so. Every other blogger will be packaging up a compendium of highlights to grip the rest of us off with, so I thought that I'd get in a bit earlier. And I promise not to grip you off... This was the year in which I got sick at tired of blogging, and, after two years and 500+ posts, killed my site off. Totally. Wiped everything. By August I found that my fingers were once again twitching at the computer keyboard, so 'yet again' formed 'North Downs and Beyond.' Oh you lucky people... In my quest to be the UK's top lister at compiling lists, I created yet another - my 'North-east Surrey uber patch'. This is basically all of my l...

Yesterday afternoon I wandered onto Headley Heath in the company of my wife, younger daughter Jessica and Amber the cocker spaniel. And what a scene of cosy domesticity we all made, man and wife wandering along arm in arm, daughter and dog at our side until - a flock of 150 Redpolls flew in, buzzing and trilling above our heads. Of course I had taken my binoculars with me, and of course I scanned through the finches. They landed in a close Silver Birch and almost immediately two of them shone out from the others as being slightly larger and paler birds. They looked very good for Mealy, but before I could get any more on them they all burst into the air and dispersed. Hmmm... I alerted Johnny Allan who is attempting to break his own Surrey year listing record and still needed Common (Mealy) Redpoll for 2010. Although I couldn't claim 100% Mealy, I had seen enough to suggest that his time could be well spent combing the heath for the Redpoll flock. And so, together with a gang of Bed...

Meet Yellow Brain Fungus - one of two additions to my 'UK All Taxa' list today. The other was also a species of fungi, Split Porecrust. I did take the latter's photograph, but the results were not up to much. The Yellow Brain Fungus was found in my back garden on the branch of a Himalayan Nutmeg. This species is meant to be parasitic on other species of fungi, although I couldn't see its host. Of local note were a flock of Waxwings that took up residency only a mile from where I live. I wandered along yesterday morning to pay my respects. A few of the human residents who live in the houses around where the Waxwings have chosen to raid the rowans were keen to find out what all of the middle-aged men with binoculars were looking at, and seemed pleased to be shown the tufty trillers. Most had heard of this species from Autumnwatch and one even asked me if Lee Evans would be turning up, as he had watched the infamous BBC4 Twitchers programme.

There's a lot of anger out there! Stewart , Alan and Gavin are not happy boys at all, and they represent but a small sample of the 'middle-aged blogger' out there (sorry boys, anyone over 35 years old counts in my definition of that particular demographic). It's almost a given, a universal law, that us human beings think that the younger generations get it wrong, that they don't know how well off they are, and do not hold dear such old cherished values as manners, dignity and gratefulness that we elders still clutch tightly to our chests. It's also the way of the older and more experienced practitioner to look down at the newcomers and Johnny-come-lately's as if they are in need of pity, ridicule and - even more damning - to be ignored altogether. Not everyone thinks this way, but enough do to make it far from uncommon. This is where it has all gone horribly wrong. Why should a newcomer or youngster want to follow such miserable old gits into this life of ...

I've always counted birds. Give me a flock and I will count it. Put me in a hide with a notebook and pen and I will fill the paper with numbers. I believe that I have a form of Tourette's which inflicts me by my having to put a number to everything that I see. I can't help it. It gives me as much joy to increase my record count of a species as it does to see a scarce bird. Last Sunday I set a new Jackdaw record - 1400! Better than the Short-eared Owl that circled overhead an hour before. Go on, ask me a species and I will tell you my record count. Turtle Dove? 150 (a single flock along a Suffolk hedgerow in 1976 as you ask). Common Crane? 33, on a misty, murky October afternoon in 1982 at Dungeness. You see, it's an illness. There's no cure. If I'm in a meadow surrounded by orchids I count every spike. When I look in my moth trap, I count the buggers. And it's not just birds. How many albums have I got? 520 on vinyl and 325 on CD. They are round numbers you ...

Contentment is something that I have rarely experienced when it comes to my study of the natural world. When I first picked up a pair of binoculars and started looking at birds I had a burning need to get out there and try and see everything there was to be seen. Nothing was ever enough. There was always more to seek. More to identify. More to write down. As I gained experience I felt the need to be accepted by the others who persued my interests. I wanted them to look upon me a not just competent, but good at what I did. I wanted a reputation as someone who was reliable. Who found rare things. Who was able to act as an expert. These things I strived for, but of course never satisfied myself that I ever achieved. So I pushed myself harder, went out of my way to infiltrate and ingratiate within the right circles, tried to be seen in the right places at the right time. But I was never destined for greatness. Was never a real contender. A career, a marriage, having children, they all bec...

For mid-November, there is still an awful lot of healthy - and new - growth at Beddington Sewage Farm. The banks of the settling beds are still awkward to navigate because of knee-deep nettle, mallow, Fat-hen and Hemlock. The picture above is of Celery-leaved Buttercup, with quite a few plants still in good flower, mainly on the sludge lagoons. Bird-wise the highlight was a Short-eared Owl that came in from the south-east, circled for 15 minutes, and then attempted to land before a thuggish gang of corvids saw it off the premises. Teal numbers have now risen to over 500 and make for an evocative visit, what with the whistling calls and the compact speeding flocks arrowing across the farm.

Christmas is coming, The waxwings are getting fat, Please put a penny in this ex-twitcher’s hat… May I present the North Downs and Beyond Christmas book round-up. Over the past 12 months these books have caught my eye and are worthy of gracing any naturalists bookshelf. Ask your loved ones or friends to buy them for you as Christmas gifts – it beats a pair of socks and a Jeremy Clarkson paperback any day. The Running Sky by Tim Dee This is quite simply the best book that I have come across that explains the wonder, joy and hurt that watching birds can bring to human beings. Part autobiography, the author cherry picks events from his life and couples them with a month of the year, starting in June and ending in May.Birds act as a conduit to exposing his emotions towards the natural world and the people who share his life. The first chapter sets the reader up for the delights to come, with a vivd description of a cliff top vigil at a seabird colony. I almost considered an o...

Earlier in the year, in a moment of inspiration, I formed my north-east Surrey Uber patch. This came about one evening when, looking at an OS map, I realised that my regular natural history patches could, with a little imagination and create thinking, be linked together to form one area. With my recent return to Beddington SF, I'm delighted to say that this addition forms a natural extention north-eastwards. Result! In moments of fancy I consider writing up an Uber patch report, collating all of my observations made in this magnificent part of Surrey (Magnificent? Surrey? In the same sentence?) To tell you the truth, I have already done just that for the birds. Each of the 201 species that I have recorded have an account commenting on status, larger counts, early and late dates for migrants and details of all records of the scarcer birds. For a land locked area the list is, I think, impressive. After 35 years of recording maybe that is to be expected. It also tells the tale of loca...

Back in 2002, after a morning botanising in Chipstead Bottom, I looked at my OS map and decided to take a short cut home through farmland. Even though I was no more than two miles from home, I had not visited the area before. I was pleasantly surprised at how picturesque the land was and more than interested in the singing Yellowhammer and displaying Lapwing that I found. I made a mental note to revisit… I t was another three years before I did so, when a Yellow Wagtail flying through a clear April sky reminded me that I really ought to take a serious look at the place. And so, in the autumn of 2005 I did so. I had trawled through my old London and Surrey Bird Reports but could find no mention of the farm. It appeared to have not been actively birded before and I felt as if I were pioneering a new patch. I met no other birders and gathered ornithological data with keenness. My coverage was not quite weekly and I found species such as Crossbill and an immature female Goshawk that go...

It's not everybody's cup of tea to spend a few relaxing hours sifting through gulls. The scene above was taken this morning at the northern lake, Beddington Sewage Farm. If you are really keen and want to play the larid version of 'Where's Wally', then click on the image for a bigger picture. If you find a Med Gull then let me know, because I didn't. I did find an adult Yellow-legged, but could not refind the Caspian Gull that I saw two weeks ago and has been seen on and off since. Today's counts included 2,500 Black-headed and 2,000 Herring. The numbers will only increase...

Back in 1976 I was a student at Epsom Art College. At that time, one of our tutors showed us an advertisement that was running in newspapers and magazines that really upset him. It was for Barclaycard, with the headline of 'Takes the waiting out of wanting'. He shook his head, nonplussed by the implied invitation for people to take out a card and gain instant credit. "We'll end up with a population in debt!" he wailed. He had predicted the financial breakdown in our society years before it actually came to pass... I kind of feel the same way about the ways of modern birding. We want, we get. Information is at our fingertips, this information is updated constantly, we can read first-hand accounts of rarities, we know exactly where they are, we know the best time of day to visit- if I want to see Waxwings or an American Bittern tomorrow, then I can. Get in the car and go! No map reading needed (set the sat nav), arrive on site and look for the crowds. Job done. With...

On the Surfbirds forum, in response to last nights BBC4 programme about twitching, Lee Evans posted an open letter, asking, among other things, whether or not he ought to pack it all in. He felt that his popularity was waning and the antagonism against him building. I did reply... Hi Lee, I am commenting on this situation as a lapsed twitcher and somebody that has only met you a few times, and that was back in the late 70s and early 80s. I am still an active birder and, although I rarely go to a rare bird, I know plenty who still do. You are correct in stating that you do have your critics, but I am sure that you would expect this when you set yourself up as a ‘policeman’ and ‘judge, jury and executioner’ to the birding world (I think that they were your words, and if I’m incorrect, forgive me). As you have never been elected, or asked to keep a watching brief on all the UK birders lists’ (as to accuracy and honesty), then again, you cannot be surprised when this causes offence or indi...

Over the past few days there has been a fair amount of internet chatter regarding the conduct of birders when they have been in the presence of rare species. I have deliberately avoided the use of the word 'twitcher' to describe the birders gathered at the alleged crime scenes as I'm sure that there were plenty of those present who do not want to be labelled with that overused word. There is nothing wrong with admitting to, or claiming to be a twitcher, but the word has become a lazy journalistic term for birders per se . Ever since birders, ornithologists or, whisper it, twitchers have gathered, there have been tales of bird harassment and unruly behaviour. It is not a modern phenomenon. Those who have been lamenting a break down in birding society have not done their research. Rare birds have always got the attention of the active birdwatcher. Anyone who has spent their time counting swallows migrating along the coast would cheer a red-rump amongst them; every ringer unde...

It is a rare event when I go out into the field and not treat every living thing that I come across as something to identify (or at least try to), to write it down in a notebook and commit it to the giant database that I maintain at home. Today was different... I have been aware for some time that my DSLR and various lenses have lay dormant, unused, and unloved. With all of the spectacular autumn colour on offer I was moved (yes, very Byronesque, I know) to get out and take some photographs. I used to dabble with illustration, and have been looking for a subject that will grab me enough to rekindle this lost art. Pattern and form have always been areas that I have gravitated towards, rather than realism. The natural world is full of both. So, this afternoon I wandered into Banstead Woods, sans binoculars set the camera function to manual, and snapped away. I was quite pleased with the results. Muted colour on an overcast afternoon which has the basis for a number of illustrative pro...

October 1979. The Scillonian docked at St. Mary's and my first task was...to find somewhere to stay. At this time the previous day I had no idea that I would be on the fabled isles. I was in a studio at art college, charcoal in hand, nude model across the room (don't get too excited, think Ann Widdicombe), but a birding mate of mine was starting a two-week birding break and I just couldn't resist it. I got a lift down with him overnight from London, but accommodation would be a problem for me. He was staying in a flat that was already oversubscribed with birders to the point that there were people sleeping in the kitchen (I bet that now the flats are empty in late October). The prevoius autumn I had 'dossed' in the waiting room at the quay, but rumour had it the island authorities had cracked down on this type of behaviour, and the waiting room door was locked at night. I quickly found a B&B, comfortable and not to expensive. The landlady was a pleasant soul, he...

I used to know most of the latin names of the birds of the Western Palearctic. I've forgotten a few of them now, but can still surprise myself with plucking them out of the air. A colleague at work would often test me, even though he isn't a birder, because it amused him. Some latin names are so apt, and I don't mean by their literal translation. Scolopax rusticola says Woodcock to me more than the word Woodcock does. Lymnocryptes minimus describes a cryptically-plumaged small skulking thing much better than Jack Snipe does. Pallas's Warbler does create an image by association, but not as much as Phylloscopus proregulus , which sounds far more stately and regal, as befits such a jewel. I had a birding friend who just couldn't get to grips with latin and used to make his own up, but he didn't make them up terribly well. So, in his birding world, Reed Bunting was, in all seriousness, Reedus Buntingus. I still think of that species by that name in honour of his w...

I spent a few minutes (oh alright, a bit more than that), looking back at photographs that I had taken earlier in the autumn of lichen. My basic field guides and a knowledge that what I was claiming was dirt common has led me to confidently identify a further four species. Together with an additional moss and another fungi brings my UK all-taxa list up to 2,618. I present to you a photograph of Evernia prunastri , if only to convince unbelievers that lichen can be stunning. It also gives you something to do when the birds are quiet.

I've just re-read yesterday's post and see that I have spelt Albatross as Albertross. Dude or what? Losing my grip? The evaporation of any birding knowledge that I once held? Yes, yes and yes. So, no mention today of Bramberlings, Palarses Warblers or even Grate Gray Shrikes... as any fule kno . Note to self: There are Lapland Buntings everywhere - go out and bloody well find one. Note to any Red-flanked Bluetails reading this: Surrey is quite a nice place to visit.

It's October, and once-upon-a-time that used to mean that I would be embarking on a trip to the fabled Isles of Scilly. As a callow youth I had heard tales about the birding wonders that they offered. The previous autumn of 1975 had set new ornithological highs with Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and Black-and-white Warbler, together with a stunning back-up that even today would get the UK400 club weak at the knees. I didn't go in 76 or 77, but 1978 saw me unexpectedly sitting on the Scillonian one Saturday morning as part of a long-distance twitch. A Semi-palmated Plover had been found on St Agnes, a bird new for Britain and new for me in many ways as I had never heard of one before. The journey across was uneventful. As we docked, I felt as if I were undergoing a rite of passage. I was here... To cut a long story short, we saw the Plover (oh so boring), waltzed around the island in double quick time (RB Fly, RB Shrike), back onto St Mary's (LB Dowitcher), dossed in the harbour ...

The landfill area at Beddington SF has waxed and waned over the past few years, with deep holes filled with refuse, covered in soil and finally landscaped. One interesting by-product of this process is a flora that has been transported to the site and which has plenty of interest, mainly due to the exotic nature of the species composition. This Sunday one small part of an earth mound was bursting with colour. Close examination revealed a Sunflower (pictured), Nasturtium, Purple Toadlax and Michaelmas Daisy. I could have returned home with a more than passable bouquet of flowers for my youngest daughter Jessica. I am looking forward to combing the farm next year as I'm sure that there will be a host of alien plants to record. On the bird front a light but steady passage of finches, larks and pipits kept us busy, including a sprinkling of Brambling. The Ruff from last weekend was still about, along with 9 Green Sandpipers.

Now that BBC's Autumnwatch is into its second series, I reckon the right time has come to ask the question that needs to be addressed - who is the better presenter - the original, Bill Oddie, or his replacement, Chris Packham? Using a series of highly scientific experiments I believe that this can be sorted once and for all. Birding know how CP exhibits a good knowledge of ornithological matters. His strengths may lay in those areas away from pure identification. WEO is a hoary old time birder through and through, scarred from various campaigns on many distant northern islands and sojourns on Scilly. His find rate will be higher. But if you ask them to write an essay on 'The Life of a Spotted Flycatcher' then CP may shade it. If you ask them both to sift through a fall of migrants on Blakeney Point then WEO should burn CP up. Hard to call but... WEO wins All-round natural history knowledge WEO is a bit of a one-trick pony here. It's birds, birds, birds all the way. CP ...

There may well be plenty of rare birds around at the moment, but in the Birdguides weekly round-up the following caught my eye: 'September is normally the peak month for arrivals of Robin and Song Thrush , but the main arrival seemed to be this week along the east coast. A flavour of the migrants involved comes from Holme Bird Observatory (Norfolk), where standard counts on 10th produced 4,500 Robins, 2,500 Song Thrushes, 6,500 Redwings , 250 Chiffchaffs , 7,000 Goldcrests , an impressive 300 Long-tailed Tits , 11 Jays , 1,500 Chaffinches , 800 Bramblings , 600 Greenfinches and 1,100 Siskins .' I would sooner have experienced the spectacle above rather than have seen any of the rare species on offer this week...

Poor Gavin Haig. Our man from Devon, that Seaton patch-watcher extraordinaire, having thrashed his local area for the past god-knows how many months, has taken a birding sabbatical. No doubt he was looking forward to going to the Isles of Scilly. It was his chance to trawl through a few rare and scarce birds as an antidote to the (in comparison) modest fayre that his home patch can offer. I can only imagine the cold sweat of horror that must have swept over him when, in the middle of a post-birding beer in a pub on St. Mary's, he found out that those he left behind in Seaton had only gone and found a Solitary Sandpiper. And it's still there. Has he bolted yet to return home and see it? Is he maintaining a cool exterior, chuckling at his mates good fortune, tutting at the unfairness of the birding gods? If I were him I'd be crying into my binoculars and would be considering giving up birding altogether...

I spent most of the day at Beddington SF as I now have become a member of the bird group, and have a key to enter the site. The two 'new' lakes are the obvious focus of the site, but I was delighted to see that some of the old-fashioned sludge lagoons (picture above) remain from 'back in the day'. I wandered the banks of these lagoons in the 1970s and 80s, and doing so again today brought back many happy memories. It was all still there - the rank vegetation, the Beddington pong (a mixture of green growth and sewage) and the birds. I flushed Green Sand, Common Sand and Snipe from these beds which will always to me be Beddington birds. Elsewhere on the farm was a Ruff, Rock Pipit, good counts of Teal and three Beddington ticks - Common Buzzard, Ring-necked Parakeet and Egyptian Goose! A clear illustration that the passing of time does indeed change local bird populations, so that you can bowl up sixteen years later and add birds to the area list with gay abandon.

When I began birding, gulls were practically ignored by most birders - unless it was something easily identifiable, such as an Iceland or Glaucous Gull... or a nice adult Mediterranean. Meds were still rare then, and non-adult plumages were a real challenge for most. Any large gull that was not in adult plumage was shunned. It was an unwritten rule that they were, on the whole, unidentifiable. A few birders came along who changed that perception. One of them was Peter Grant. Because we were both Dungeness regulars I got to know him well, and can remember him critically analysing the few gull skins that were housed in a cabinet in the observatory. He made sketches, spent a long time at the power station water outflow where gulls gathered and similarly at the RSPB reserve where a significant roost assembled. We both sat in a hide overlooking this roost and he asked me to go through the motley collection of larids that had gathered, and to make my best attempt at ageing and identifying th...

The first 'proper' birding site that I visited was Beddington Sewage Farm. This was back in 1974 and I was 15 years old. I cannot tell you how excited I was as I walked onto the hallowed ground - I had read about it in John Gooders ' Where to watch birds ' and expected to be overcome with species that I had never seen before. In truth it was a bit of a let down, but I had started on a 12 year unbroken association with the place. In those early years the farm still held onto characteristics of the old-fashioned sewage works, with large open fields that periodically flooded, red brick pump-houses and there were still rows of elms (just about to be decimated by Dutch Elm disease). I saw many species for the first time, including Short-eared Owl, Jack Snipe and Water Pipit - classic Beddington birds. The odd rarer species came along, with Bluethroat, Spotted Crake, Temminck's Stint and Lesser Yellowlegs the pick of the crop. By 1986 I had wandered away from regular visi...

At the end of last year, I set myself a target of photographing 500 species of plant by the end of 2010. Some time during July I managed to reach that total and am now well on the way to 550 species that have posed for me. They sit neatly in folders on my computer and are backed-up on a removable hard disk and various DVD's. I'm ridiculously proud of my humble collection. Each image tells a story. Some of the plants gave themselves up without much of a battle to get that defining image. Others still refuse to give themselves up. Every attempt to photograph Hairy Bittercress, (absurdly common), has ended in failure. Why do I do it? Well, partly because flowers are beautifully complex structures that can be visually breathtaking and therefore are worthy of a second look at leisure, particularly in the middle of winter when there isn't much on offer botanically. Also it's good to have a reference for the future. I don't pick plants and therefore I do not maintain a her...

The weather stymied my biding at either end of the day (fog in the morning, then persistant rain from mid-afternoon), but Holmethorpe Sand Pits did produce a Water Rail, 2 Common Sandpipers, a Green Sandpiper and a Brambling, while Canons Farm also yielded a Brambling. I spent a good hour on Nutfield Ridge looking at fungi. They are not easy. I believe the picture above to be a Pestle Puffball, but please tell me if I'm wrong. Meadow Waxcaps were more straightforward and I have pictures of several more species that I need to look at more closely. This all-taxa listing lark is enjoyable but highly challenging.

A wet and blustery morning saw me sheltering not only from the elements but also from horse chestnut fruits (conkers to me and you) being hurled to the ground, vicious weapons whose hard brown bullets were wrapped in spiky green armour. The thousands of conkers that were strewn across path and pavement are being left alone by the children of 2010. When I was a lad (cue black and white film of happy children frolicking in a world safe from all danger), there would have been gangs roaming the streets to lay claim to Horse Chestnut trees and would have already stripped the trees in question. Too impatient to wait for nature to take its course, we would have hurled stones and sticks up into the branches to dislodge the conkers. Looking down at the unclaimed haul at my feet this morning, I thought that there was as much chance of that having happened back in the 1960s as there having been half-crowns strewn over the pavement. (History lesson: pre-decimalisation in 1971, a half-crown was a c...

I have all day Saturday too go birding. A 24 hour pass from domestic chores, not that I do that many domestic chores to be honest. There is a bit of painting and decorating that could be done, there's a back door that has started to stiffen up and a bit of insulating that could be laid in the loft. But no, they can wait (my wife may suggest that they permanently wait). So, Saturday. Where to go? What to do? The options are: Dungeness. There are two Buff-breasted Sandpipers in the area and I've no doubt that migrants have been stirred up a bit this week so there could be plenty on offer. Another south-east site: Oare Marshes (White-rumped Sandpiper), Bockhill (lovely place but I never score there), Pagham (an old favourite). Birdguides: weigh up the options on Friday evening and follow the sheep to the nearest goody. Stay local: hmmm, a few Yellow-broweds dotted about the country, Ring Ouzels leaping about urban wastelands throughout London, both of these would be more than ...

As one who normally posts with, shall we say, a 'glass half-empty' philosophy, it is high time that I became a touch more positive. What has turned me from Victor Meldrew into Archbishop Desmond Tutu? Believe it or not, I'm increasingly seeing good in my fellow birder. Yes, that right, good. Let me give you a couple of local examples. There is a group of birders who stake out Beddington Farmlands (aka Beddington Sewage Farm). They are a mixture of rabid twitchers, dedicated patch workers and frontier birdsmen. The group was formed some twenty years ago, with modest but worthy aims to record the birdlife of the farm and publish the findings. A healthy Tree Sparrow population was studied through the ringing of nestlings. As time went by, various schemes to extract aggregate from the farm and then infill with refuse were hatched by big business. Some of these have come to fruition, but the group were there throughout consultations and public enquiries. Through such actions, pa...