NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

After returning home on November 2nd I was back on the shingle a week later, just a quick morning visit that provided two Wheatears, three Black Redstarts and a Firecrest in the moat. It was then on to Elmley, on the Isle of Sheppey, where a wealth of wildfowl included a single White-fronted Goose and three Bewick’s Swans. Wader numbers were high, with 1,000 Dunlins and good numbers of Grey Plovers and Knots, along with two Avocets, two Greenshanks and a Spotted Redshank. In a cold, blue, late-afternoon sky, bathed in sunlight, we sat and watched a minimum of six Short-eared Owls, that hunted over the honey-coloured panorama before us. Back at Beddington, Mike Netherwood had found a Spotted Crake, that was being faithful to one of the large settling beds on 100acre. After a three day wait I saw the bird on November 15th, joining a few other birders sitting on the banking that surrounded the muddy rectangle of vegetated sludge. The crake was oblivious to its admirers, feeding out in the...

A mid-September Saturday saw me embark on the whistle-stop tour of Kent, starting at Shellness, on the Isle of Sheppey, where a marked passage of hirundines and pipits was most obvious, along with 100 grounded Meadow Pipits, eight Wheatears and eight Yellow Wagtails. Nearby Capel Fleet was playing host to an immature Marsh Harrier. We then dropped down and drove slowly across the flat greenlands of Walland Marsh, where 25 Yellow Wagtails, four Whinchats and a Common Redstart were seen from the car. Arriving at Dungeness it was all too apparent that little was happening, although the following morning was kind enough to bestow upon us an adult female Red-backed Shrike, along with a Turtle Dove and Whinchat. All were keeping low in the bushes thanks to a strengthening south-westerly wind. Along with Dave E, we were whisked down to Cornwall in the early hours of September 21st courtesy of Mike Mc’s Toyota Celica – speed trumped comfort as we lowered ourselves into the cramped interior. Fi...

I had been introduced to Mike McDonnell by Dave E, who had befriended him on the Isles of Scilly the previous autumn. Mike was a happy-go-lucky birder/photographer who lived in Dartford. I was to spend much time with him over the coming couple of years, regularly being driven to his house by Dave E, where we would invariably wait for Mike to gather his stuff, which would also involve his preparation of lunch for the day’s birding. Mike did not scrimp on his food – he would produce veritable feasts that would shame my simple sandwiches, often featuring an oversized thermos flask full of cuts of meat. It was never a dull moment with Mike, the time being passed with much laughter and the inevitable search for a decent pub at the day’s end. On this mid-August day, we had driven on to the north-Kent village of Cliffe, where a series of Thames-side pools could be found and had a reputation as being good for waders. Our haul included six Wood Sandpipers, 12 Ruffs and two Curlew Sandpipers, al...

My time as an art student had come to an end. The social element of college life was something that I enjoyed, albeit on my own terms. I was known as someone that would join in when the collective hair was being let down (and our hair was still long for most of that period) but if a good bird was to suddenly appear, I would be missing. Birding came first. My frequent absences, because of last-minute decisions to go off to Dungeness, Norfolk, or the Isles of Scilly, were just accepted by my peers. In later years, one of my fellow students expressed his admiration for my self-confidence, and my willingness to please myself, not worrying about what others thought. It had come at a price however – whereas others had formed firm friendship groups, I was always on their edge, never one on the inside. I had turned and walked the other way whenever there was the hint of a relationship forming, so focussed was I on maintaining my birding connections. I believed that to show any drop in commitme...

Every five seconds a monotonous single call note was given – I didn’t know whether to describe it as a penetrating whistle or a hoot. Maybe a bit of both. We were straining to try and get a glimpse of the bird that was making it, but a mature tree in full leaf, in the middle of a field, and at dusk, were proving to be considerable stumbling blocks. After half an hour of standing on a road that ran alongside the field’s edge, the bird dropped out of the tree and made a short, direct flight into another, from where it started to call once more. We were lucky, as unlike most of the 150 birders present, we had been standing in the right place at the right time, able to watch the Scops Owl in flight. The views had not been great but were enough to make out a small grey owl, thinner and more drawn out in shape than a Little. And so, the sleepy Hampshire hamlet of Dummer found itself at the centre of the British birding universe, hosting the first twitchable Scop’s Owl of our lifetimes. Dave ...

I was close to completing my final year at Art College. The Easter break of two weeks was upon us, and I had just one place in mind as to where I would spend it – Dungeness. Teaming up with Tim Collins, we travelled down via Otford Field Pits (four Green Sandpipers, two Redshanks and 80 Common Snipe) and Shirley Moor (a Little Owl), arriving at the bird observatory after dark. It was a fortnight of heavy birding, with our horizons stretched across the greater Dungeness area, walking many miles over the energy-sapping shingle, building up our calf muscles as some compensation for the birding being, at times, slow. But we did have some success. In the observatory recording area we experienced a steady, if unremarkable, passage of migrant passerines, with peaks of Wheatear (20 on March 29th, 26 on April 2nd), Willow Warbler (30 on April 11th), Chiffchaff (15 on April 11th), Firecrest (five on March 28th and April 2nd), Meadow Pipit (100 on March 29th) and Black Redstart (five on April 9th...

The first twitch of 1980 also turned out to be the first dip. On the morning of January 26th, I stood on the narrow paths at Radipole Lake in Dorset along with several hundred other birders, forlornly searching every dyke and pool for the Pied-billed Grebe that had been found the previous day. The neighbouring reedbeds were quiet, a single singing Cetti’s Warbler and three Bearded Tits hardly enough to compensate for the lack of rarity. A skein of 24 White-fronted Geese that flew through were a surprise though, along with three Greenshanks. The grebe, however, was just toying with us, as we were back again the following weekend as it had resurfaced, this time allowing us to obtain close views almost as soon as we arrived. It sat close to a Little Grebe, dwarfing its European cousin, betraying a long, thick neck and anvil shaped head that seemed out of proportion to the small body. There was a hint of colour to the largely grey-brown plumage, with a black crown and russet cheeks. The bi...