14 days at home revisited

Colley Hill on the North Downs. Always looks good, rarely produces. Maybe this autumn?

Back in the late spring I embarked upon a '14-days at home' project which saw me spend a fortnight criss-crossing the uberpatch (May 26th - June 8th) recording all that I saw. The final totals comprised 88 species of bird, 419 species of plant, 19 species of butterfly and a distance of 245.5km walked. The birding was slow, with many species in woeful numbers. However, as a project - a green, low-carbon project - it was enjoyable. At the time I suggested that I might do it again in the autumn. Well, the autumn is here...

I may start tomorrow, or maybe at the end of the week, I'm not sure yet. I will, as far as possible, remain on foot. I will concentrate just on the birds this time. I'm not expecting too much as, locally at any rate, this autumn has been painful for extracting passage migrants. Chats are thin on the ground. Hirundines largely missing in action. It's a bit early for some meaningful finch and pipit vis-mig although the odd Tree Pipit or Yellow Wagtail would be welcome. As always, the enjoyment of being out there, looking, will be what will keep me going through what I'm sure will be a modest return.

Increasingly - and no doubt owing to the ornithological diminishing returns - I find myself assessing my time in the field: is it only about what I end up seeing, or is there something deeper than that to get out of it? A spiritual return? A social awareness? A sense of place for myself (of now and of the past) in what is around me? We may wander about, optics at the ready, in a bit of a bubble, but that bubble is forever bumping up against places and things that have great interest and a hidden meaning just waiting to be unearthed. All this is surely worth exploring. And if the birding is as slow as I expect it to be I'll have plenty of time to do so.

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