NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

After committing adultery with the Sussex South Downs a couple of times recently, I thought it best to return to my first love, that of the Surrey North Downs. On Monday, as I stood looking northwards from Chantry Hill, I could clearly see the chalk scrape that runs down the side of Colley Hill, and saw it as a beckoning, a reminder to return home and bird. So this morning, instead of heading back down to check out Chanctonbury and Cissbury Rings as I had planned, I stayed close to home, and was on the Colley Hill top at 06.15hrs. An hour later it was clear that nothing was on the move, save for just a couple of Siskins, whose plaintive calls cried out unseen. Apart from a few Chiffchaffs there were few migrants to get excited about. It therefore came as a kick-in-the-teeth to read tweets from Wes and Matt, who had been enjoying a bit of movement at Leith Hill, only nine miles to the south-west. Still, I had several miles of scarp to walk and scrub to bash - there was still time to r...

Even in the sleepy backwater that is Charmouth it is still possible to be gripped off. I was watching a Dipper (above) in nearby Lyme Regis when Richard Phillips kindly texted me (while on his way to Tresco) to inform me that there was a Cattle Egret in Charmouth. I may have only been down here for two days but now (ridiculously) think of myself as a local - I was gripped off! I had walked to Lyme so faced a lengthy journey back along the not easy to traverse beach. To cut a long story short I duly arrived at the Egrets last reported site (a field with cattle as to be expected) but of the bird there was no sign, although three Yellow Wagtails dodging the hooves were some compensation But fear not! My new found local knowledge had me walking up Old Lyme Hill to gain a panoramic view across the surrounding farmland, and BINGO, there it was, strutting its stuff some half-mile further east. I wonder if it will gather some mates? The garden MV supplied me with a Box Moth (they ...

Where can you get a surfeit of food, drink, Tom Petty and The B52's? If you happen to spend the weekend with a certain resident of Littlestone in Kent, such rewards will be yours... but you will also have to put up with Ashes cricket coverage, a few jokes and much chat, but someone has got to put up with it and I bravely accepted the invitation to do so. Thanks Mark! After admiring his beautifully tended and stocked garden I spoilt its ambience by putting out the MV trap. Despite Saturday night being breezy we recorded 35+ macro species, including Coast Dart and L-Album Wainscot (above). During Saturday afternoon we dropped into Dungeness Bird Observatory where there was a gathering of the 'old-timers' from the 1950s, 60s and 70s (plus some newbies who have only been going to the shingle for thirty years). And what did the assembled ornithological minds talk about? Moult in gulls? Pipit identification? The demise of the Turtle Dove?. No, the subjects ranged from hip ...

L-album Wainscot - not in Surrey Archer's Dart - not from my back garden Dark Tussock - and neither is this. If you think that I've run out of moth images from Dungeness, then think again. I've not even used the best one yet - I bet you cannot wait (stop yawning at the back there...) Anyhow, here are three species that are local, none of which I've seen away from the Kent coast.