NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

The Beatles sang "I've got to admit it's getting better..." and I could say the same about the local birding over the past week. Redwings, after a winter of having gone missing, have suddenly appeared, with 300+ present on rank grassland/woodland within 800m from home last week and up to 360 feeding on Walton Downs horse paddocks this afternoon. My first decent sized group of Stonechats of the spring decided to show themselves on Epsom Downs (this afternoon) with six birds (four males, two females) that only encouraged head-scratching from myself in my trying to age and assign them to a subspecies - as one male was so much paler on the underparts than the others (a cleaner orange, clear white and dark black head, pictured above) and one of the females was brighter and cleaner than the other. I've read up, but am none the wiser. Maybe best to leave alone. A walk across Epsom and Walton Downs earlier today also rustled up three displaying Lapwing (a sound I never ti...

We are almost at the end of the autumn visible-migration season, and, so far, it has been pretty decent. Following on from a massive Redwing day, and a more than passable Fieldfare-fest, I have spent the past two mornings at Colley Hill, on the North Downs just above the town of Reigate. Here are the two watches in detail, taken from my postings on Trektellen: Friday's session was four-and-a-half hours of birding that had its rewards, although the bird stream didn't really get going. Of the thrushes, it was three flocks of Blackbird (50, 27 and 25) that were the most interesting, as I cannot recall watching this species visibly migrate through the county before, certainly not beyond the odd one or two. The four Hawfinches were in a flock and briefly alighted. Watching many of the birds as they moved westward was instructive. Most arrived from the east, flying parallel with the scarp slope, maybe 100-200m out (to the south). Plenty just carried on through towards the Mole Gap, b...

The Redwing passage that was covered in the previous post carried on to excite and inspire the following morning, here in Banstead (October 14th). Ordinarily, a westerly movement of 5,805 would elicit an awful lot more notice, but coming in the wake of the monstrous 26,013, was somewhat undersold. It was, however, my third highest Redwing total ever - anywhere. There is a perverse part of me that chuckles at the fact that, two days ago, my back garden spanked every other site in the UK for Redwing numbers, apart from that Surrey birding Death-star, Leith Hill tower. It goes some way to convince myself that I am not wasting my time here. There have been a few Chaffinches on the move, in their low hundreds, with a sprinkling of Brambling thrown in for good measure. I was able to watch a flock of 14 of the latter feeding on Whitebeam berries at the base of Colley Hill on October 12th (pictured). The nearby farmland held a flock of 400 Linnet and a local record count (for me anyway) of 40 ...

Sometimes you are in the right place, at the right time. And sometimes you are only in the right place at the right time because you have stood there for days on end, waiting for it to happen. Today it happened. It has become a bit of an 'October thing' over my garden, here in Banstead - a day (or two) of concentrated diurnal Redwing passage, so much so that I stand outside the house, at dawn from October 1st, waiting for it to commence. My previous back garden successes have included: 7,724 west at on 12 October 2020 5,334 west on 15 October 2020 4,145 west on 8 October 2018  3,203 west on 13 October 2020 The Surrey record, up until this morning, stood at 15,000 west at Beddington SF on 12 October 1997. I had no expectation of ever reaching that figure, and thought that my 7,724 from last autumn was a bit of a one-off. How wrong was I... It started to look good yesterday afternoon/evening, with the Flysafe/BirdTAM website offering up graphs and charts that predicted the follow...

It is still cold outside, but the wind has shifted to the south-west and we are promised milder temperatures as from this evening. My Lapwing count has refused to budge over the past couple of days, and even though passage over Surrey has eased up, they are still being seen - I'll just have to chalk this down to bad luck, not being in the right place at the right time and the like. Locally there have been some sluggish thrushes moping about, too tame for their own good. Let's just hope that not too many have succumbed and the thaw will come to their rescue. I had my Covid jab on Saturday, at a major hub that has been set up at the Epsom Downs Racecourse. I walked (only 40 minutes on foot from home) but confused all of the volunteers because I didn't arrive by car. There was no pedestrian access so had to duck under tape and push aside crash barriers to enter and exit. Not all that low-carbon friendly! Arm aches, feel a bit flu-like, but those are small side-effects to have ...

  Birding lockdown walk (number one) was a circular affair from home, looping across Epsom and Walton Downs, then onto Walton Heath. Very quiet, with the birds coming in sudden bursts - 125 Skylarks across two fields, 30 Meadow Pipits in a flock, a pair of Stonechats, plus maybe 60 Fieldfares and 150 Redwing (above). Botanical highlight was my annual visit to the (expanding) patch of Green Hellebore in a copse on Walton Downs (below). Not much of it was in flower. If I had have found a Little Bunting, or Great Grey Shrike, or Black-throated Thrush, I wouldn't really have been able to announce it, what with all the restrictions currently in place. So when I do, you won't know. If I have already, I couldn't say...

The Redwings around here have not been behaving themselves as expected. For a start, they have been in sub-song all late autumn and now in early winter. Yesterday there were 20+ all having a good old partial sing-song together, like a choir of carol singers warming up. I don’t normally hear this sort of performance until the very mild days of late-February. And there has been their high numbers - 100-200 birds have been marauding around the Banstead gardens feeding on the home-grown berries. It is unusual to see so many domestically unless the weather has been hard, and we are in the midst of mildness personified. So, what is happening? Food shortages on the downs? A sudden influx from the continent? All this is being carried out with the starting up of Song and Mistle Thrush song as accompaniment. Together with the conspicuous Blackbirds, it is brimming locally with thrush action.

The past three Octobers has seen my birding effort dedicated to finding decent visible migration spots in Surrey. My search has been deliberately confined to within ten miles from home. So far, and largely with good return, I have tried Box Hill, Colley Hill, Denbies Hillside, Epsom Downs, Canons Farm, Priest Hill and last, but not least, my back garden in Banstead. It is the latter that I will expand upon for this post. I am on (for Surrey) fairly high ground, a northerly spur of the North Downs. The garden is of moderate size and is north-westerly facing, looking up and along a slope. Neighbouring roof tops and a mature Ash tree cuts down visibility somewhat, but I can position myself to be able to see most of the sky, with the southwards views quite good and, looking across to a slightly higher ridge some 600m away, far-reaching in places. Back-garden vis-migging was born out of convenience, but it soon became apparent that it would repay my efforts. Big hirundine and thrush movemen...

In all honesty it started three autumns ago. My fellow birders were picking up Tree Pipit calls and I was failing to do so. This was unusual, as I had quite a good ear and had never had any trouble picking Tree Pipits up before. I began to get a little concerned when, whilst standing next to somebody who picked up a couple of birds calling overhead in quick succession, I hadn’t heard a thing. Last autumn I partook in a lot of vismigging and was surprised that the Redwing flocks were not calling as they passed through. I was even more surprised when they were not calling at night, even at times when others were reporting heavy nocturnal passage with much calling being heard. I wondered why the skies above my house remained silent, but deep down my suspicions were being aroused. So far this year I have seen plenty of Swifts, enjoying their flocks racing overhead in numbers that have been up on recent years. Funny thing is, none of them have been calling... This afternoon we visited...

With good numbers of Hawfinches having been picked up by vismiggers over the past few weeks I was inspired to check out the western-most valleys on Headley Heath - where, two years ago almost to the day,  I located a Hawfinch roost which stayed into December, drawing a fair few birders to enjoy the experience. I arrived at 13.30hrs and positioned myself between the two valleys, at the spot that proved so rewarding back in 2017. Two hours later I was not just Hawfinch-less but almost birdless. It was really quiet, with just a handful of Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Redwing and Fieldfare to break the monotony. I decided to switch position, moving up to the top of the eastern valley and look back westwards. The light was beginning to fade but the calm conditions and slight chill in the air were quite invigorating, so I stayed put, just taking in the lovely scene before me. Then, at 15.55 hrs, and for the next 30 minutes, Redwings started to pour into the valleys, arriving from the west (Bo...

To the west of Box Hill you will find a narrow river valley, formed tens of thousands of years ago by the River Mole. It must have once been a mighty river, not the shallow, sluggish water course that it is today. In recent posts you will find maps of the Box Hill area with identified flight lines of migrating birds. I have marked such flight lines along the Mole Gap, but in recent weeks the birds had not been using them - until today. I arrived at my favoured Box Hill vantage point at 06.30 hrs. It is a small area of flat ground on the scarp slope with views eastwards and, most crucially today, westwards, across the Mole Gap and on towards Ranmore. Thrushes were on the move quickly afterwards, a mixture of Redwings and Fieldfares. After approximately 75 minutes I had recorded at least a thousand of both species. By 09.00hrs the Fieldfares had tailed off, with the stream of Redwings more or less coming to a halt by 10.30hrs. An hour later I called it a day. The final totals were:...

When I stepped out of the house at 07.00hrs the air was laden with moisture. The weather forecast was that of a nagging band of rain stretched across the south-east of England, and unlikely to clear until the afternoon - but it's proposed edge was tantalisingly close to Dorking (according to one satellite image that I had looked at.) So, instead of heading to Colley Hill as intended, I made my way to Box Hill, hoping that the extra few miles west might make a difference in the weather. Arriving at Box Hill made clear that it hadn't. The roads were awash with standing water, although the headlights did pick out a few Song Thrushes having a bathe. The hill top was shrouded in mist, but walking a third of the way down the scarp allowed some semblance of visibility across Dorking and on towards the Greensand Ridge. Looking south-east I could also just about see aircraft taking off and landing at Gatwick Airport, so I was ready for action. The only problem was the persistence in t...

Three out of the last four evenings have been spent on the Epsom/Walton Downs border, with owls and roosts in mind. I've drawn a blank on owls, but the roost situation is a lot more interesting. On each visit 400-500 Jackdaws have left the woods to head northwards and appear to be roosting in the copse that is located alongside the race course. But it is the thrushes that have held the most interest - on Friday it was quite a spectacle, with flocks arriving from the west and pitching down in woodland around Juniper Hill. A minimum of 850 Redwing, 16 Fieldfare and 12 Blackbird came in, some of the flocks numbering 100-200. It was a joy to see them come down from high and swoop around the canopy before settling. I returned for seconds yesterday, but apart from c100 thrushes that was my lot. And this evening even fewer showed up. So, where have they gone? Were they birds moving through, stopping over briefly before heading on to wintering grounds elsewhere? Are they still around, but ...

A dawn arrival at Juniper Bottom saw a keen frost and good visibility. I trudged up the open slope towards Juniper Top but found my passage halted several times by flocks of Redwing that were passing overhead in an easterly direction. Half way up I stopped to witness (and count) what was obviously a heavy thrush movement. And here I largely stood for the next four and a half hours. All the birds were arriving from the west and following the line of the valley (running from Norbury Park to Headley) and leaving east to north-east. They were generally in good sized flocks (20-200). A few Fieldfares were with them, with some flocks being mixed. The only other species seemingly involved were Chaffinch (55) and Brambling (10). After 09.30hrs the movement lessened but was still obvious. Visibility started to worsen, with a misty horizon and pockets of light fog. And then, as if an agreement had been reached by the thrushes, the flocks, instead of moving on and out of the area, started ...

There is something about watching birds on the move that is special. To see flocks fly past in a hurry, born out of instinct and necessity, is to witness a natural phenomena that predates our time on earth. My tastes in observing such movements are not fussy - they could be terns or waders over a sea; hirundines contouring low over a headland; or, like this morning, thrushes en route to their wintering grounds by flying over my back garden. I was out at first light, but it took a good hour before the floodgates opened. By 09.15 it slowed, coming to a virtual halt by 10.30 hrs. My final total was of 4,145 Redwings, all moving west in flocks of up to 150-200 in size. None hung around. These were ably supported by 308 Chaffinches with a few Fieldfare and Brambling alongside. I'm now hoping for more of the same tomorrow...

As I needed to be close to home today I embarked on a day-long 'on-off' sky watch. On the whole it was disappointing, with very few birds passing overhead, hirundines at barely a trickle, with the odd Chaffinch and Meadow Pipit thrown in to punctuate the quiet. However, the coming of winter was encapsulated by two Redwing (the autumn's first) that flew west early on and a further four landed in a neighbouring garden early in the evening. These are quite early, my 'firsts' are normally not until early October. It was interesting to see that there was a sprinkle of sightings of this fine thrush across the county today. Another intriguing aspect of today was a steady passage of Stock Doves, with at least 100 heading south. These are likely to be local birds moving between feeding sites rather than migrants, although the odd flock was quite high and purposeful. Over the past five years this species has become much commoner in 'my' part of Surrey, with Canons Far...

I was up and about by 05.30hrs so 'did' the moth trap in the half-light. The promise of a cloudy night hadn't materialised, so the trap was not heaving with moths - in fact, apart from a smattering of Hebrew Characters and Common Quakers there was just the single new species for the year, an Early Grey. I decided to walk up to Canons Farm, which normally takes 25 minutes. The early sun gave a weak pulse of warmth and together with the calmness made for a pleasant enough start to the day. Thoughts had foolishly turned to migrants (and by that I really mean Wheatears, hirundines and Ring Ouzels!) but the fields remained very quiet, the hedgerows were silent and the skies largely empty. Slowly, but surely, the wind started to pick up from the north, with each passing minute the temperature lowering. As if recognising such conditions, a large feeding flock of thrushes materialised, with 200 Redwing and 175 Fieldfare reminding us fools as to the real season. A lone Great Black...

I like nothing better than a good passage of diurnal migrants passing overhead - migration and movement in all its glory. This morning at Canons Farm there was, for the first three hours of daylight, a good passage of Redwing (700), Starling (3,000) and Chaffinch (300) in a westerly/south-westerly direction. The odd Redpoll, Siskin and Brambling was thrown in for good measure. One of last weeks Ring Ouzels was still haunting the hedgerows. The Kestrel pictured above decided to pounce on an earthworm and consume it only yards away. Even I had to digiscope it.