NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

I've seen quite a few references to our current mild - nay, warm - and sunny weather being nothing more than an anomaly and that we will soon be back in the real world (cloud, chill, sleet, ice). Maybe that is so. But in the meantime let's just enjoy the 'false spring' while it is with us. Lap up the insects and enjoy the bird song. The Yellowhammer at Canons Farm (above) was certainly getting in the mood. This time last year the 'Beast from the East' was about to sweep across us - has a year really passed since then?

We are all guilty of it. Each Spring - or in the case of 2019, this February - we go bananas over the appearance of our first Brimstone butterfly. There is a shared nationwide convulsion formed of tweets, posts and photographs, all singing the praises or showing off the butter yellow of Gonepteryx rhamni . It clearly has a deep-seated meaning, not dissimilar to the arrival of the Northern Wheatear, that pin-up bird of the summer migrants. Both species are colourful and charismatic. Both will snuggle up close to us humans, seemingly at peace with our close attention. The importance of their appearance in the 21st century has most probably been watered down somewhat. To people who were eaking out their food stores and living in harsher conditions, these harbingers of warmer days were almost literally lifesavers. That it doesn't mean so much to most of us, in the mollycoddled modern day, is unsurprising, although for some it is still an event that elicits joy. Joy that another wint...

17.50hrs and I've just switched on the garden MV. I could make a case for it still being light, it is undeniably mild and there are several Blackbirds in full song. Yes, it really does feel like spring! My visit to Priest Hill yesterday afternoon was made in (relative for February) positively balmy conditions - weak sun, no wind, just a jumper on - but the downside was that the weather seems to have given notice to the birds that had been present there recently, as not a single winter thrush remained and I could not find any of the Reed Buntings. A winter clear out to make way for the first spring migrants? Too early for a White-arse maybe, but just right for a trickle of these little beauties...

The unfurling of a crocus is all that it takes for me to believe that an invisible line has been crossed in the progression of the seasons. Winter might still hold all of the trump cards, but Spring has peeked over the parapet and has taken a look around. After spying that crocus, I spent an hour at Priest Hill and was delighted to hear up to four Skylarks in song and display - the first this year. This species has been otherwise sullen so far. A Common Buzzard also crossed the airspace (the first since early autumn here) and drew an escort of corvids that frantically and noisily chased it away. We have quite a marked Spring passage of this raptor, and I wouldn't mind guessing that this is an early migrant. We may still see snow, frost and freezing cold, but the next season in line has already put a marker down.

I've been spending a bit of time in the garden recently, tidying up from the neglect of winter. A bit of cutting back; raking up leaves that dropped after the autumn winds or were blown out of their hiding places by winter gusts; reducing the rampant ivy; giving the lawns their first trim of the year (although neither modest affairs would win any awards, being more moss and tree root than grass); cleaning out bird feeders and topping up the ones in use; clearing the pond of floating debris (this doesn't take long as it is very small indeed). Wherever I looked, there were signs of the season ramping up - buds where there were no buds just a few days ago, leaves unfurling, flower unveiling. A bit of sun and the attendant warmth enticed Brimstones and Small Tortoiseshells out of hibernation. If I actually switched the moth trap on (I haven't so far this year) there would no doubt be the usual suspects to greet me, the Hebrew Characters, the Clouded Drabs and the Common Quake...

So, we have reached the last day of May. Not really the end of spring, neither the beginning of summer, maybe a mash-up of the two. But, for the purpose of this post, let's pretend that we have indeed finished with spring 2015. How was it for you? For me, in north Surrey, it was a stop-start affair. The weather was largely cool. Largely dry. A few pulses of migration were experienced, but it then stuttered. Nothing really unusual came along. It was all a bit benign, not terribly exciting, birding as if sedated. But I tried. I put in many hours, mostly on foot. It wasn't unenjoyable, but at times it seemed like hard work. Wheatears had a good passage - the highest counts being 8 at Priest Hill on April 13th and 7 at Mogador two days later. Three splendid Whinchats, two Common Redstarts and two Black Redstarts were welcome. Three Red Kites floated across the air space. A handful of Hobbys. But there were no bonus species - no Ring Ouzels, Groppers, Ospreys, Marsh Harriers... ...

March 1st never fails to get me excited. It says "Spring". It says "lighter evenings". It says "migrants". But all too often, after several days of the third month, nothing much has really changed. There might be a handful of early migrants reported on the coast, but generally these will fizzle away and leave us wondering if we dreamed about such observations. It is then that I believe that what March really says is "fooled you again, sucker..." It happens every year. A warmish mid-March day will provide a few butterflies, a Wheatear and a Little Ringed Plover. I will stand there breathing in the air as if it is charged with life itself (which I suppose it is), look around at the rude health of the fresh green vegetation lit by the sunlight and marvel at the hundreds of insects that have come to life. And then, the following day, all has been replaced by a nasty cold wind, scudding low grey clouds and the natural world seems to have retreated a...

Each year, as winter marches on into February, and the first stirrings of spring start to show, I become readied. Ready to welcome the growing number of moths to the MV. Ready to start taking in the first flowering violets. Ready to be made happy by the first flash of Wheatear white or the flick of a hirundine's wing. Time slows down, with each day of late February and early March revealing just a little bit of what's to come. Slowly, ever so slowly, it is adding to the building anticipation. And then - WHOOSH! It happens all at once. From bare trees to riots of blossom - from winter thrushes to summer swallows - from a lone Brimstone to a veritable selection box of butterflies in the garden. It happens too quickly, as if winter suddenly gives up the ghost with a violent shudder and instantaneously sheds its skin to reveal spring finery underneath. Every year I feel as if I've somehow missed the moment when this metamorphosis takes place. I want to rewind and take it al...