NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Do you dream about birding? And by that I don’t mean do you daydream about finding a Blue-cheeked Bee-eater as you go about your daily life. I mean those dreams that visit us when we are fast asleep. I don’t. I wish that I did. I have had dreams that involve being present in ‘birdy’ places - normally Dungeness, sometimes Portland - but they tend to involve me having left my binoculars at home or I’m packing up to leave the comforts of the observatory in the full knowledge that something good will turn up as soon as I’ve left. Birds themselves don’t figure. That seems strange considering the number of years that I’ve been birding. Strangely enough, moths have cropped up a few times, normally involving checking an MV trap that is full of the most stunning and colourful species, none that I can identify. Mainly because they don’t exist. I have had similar dreams involving exotic plants that crowd a grass verge, me standing alongside, a gibbering wreck, confused by the flowers on show. ...

I regularly have this dream. I am at a bird observatory. Sometimes it is Dungeness and at other times it is Portland. If it is Dungeness, the observatory building is in an old house that has many levels to it and is quite well furnished. The habitat immediately outside the building is as Dungeness actually is, but the further I walk away from the sea it becomes luxurious woodland with grassy glades. If my dream is at Portland then the observatory building is a much smaller affair than it really is and it is situated on a massive cliff headland, not dissimilar to Gibraltar (the British protectorate, not the observatory in Lincolnshire). The fields are disected by deep rutted tracks. Most of the time I am just about to start my holiday at whichever observatory the dream is featuring, or just about to depart from it. Quite often I have forgotten my optics. There is never, ever, any birding involved. When I wake up I long to return to the observatory dream, maybe I have this longing becaus...