NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

The 'pan-species-listing family' has had a big argument, a trial separation and gone through a messy divorce all in the space of 48 hours - and I thought that it was only birders that squabbled and fell out! Without naming names and reasons, a public spat on the Facebook Group page has led to the FB group being disbanded, then started up again by the two warring factions - so we now have two different places on which to post, natter and share. One is called 'pan-species recording' and the other 'pan-species listing'. Confused? Well, just to confuse us even more, as I type this post there has been a name change. The 'recording' group is now called the 'Biological recording in the British Isles' group. I am a member of both, not wanting to take sides or get involved with the internal politics. My  willingness to get involved in such shenanigans has been whittled away down the years and I know to my own cost that these situations are rarely fully ...

At last the garden MV came up with the goods, albeit a modest haul - but there will be no complaints from me. Single Hebrew Character, Dotted Border (above), Spring Usher, Epiphyas postvittana and two Agnopterix heracliana have kick-started my 2015 mothing year. But, if nothing else, I'm a pragmatist - we will see plenty of cold nights when moths will be off the menu before the season truly comes to life.

Birding in the Surrey hinterland, particularly during the winter months, can be hard work. Frustrating. Soul sapping. Even depressing. Today was one such day, when a combination of drizzle and a lack of birds turned me from an enthusiastic birder to a crumpled heap within an hour. I was walking across Walton Heath when it occurred to me that not only could I not see a single bird, I also couldn't hear one. I stood still and looked harder. I made my ears work overtime. Nothing. For maybe 20-30 seconds (it seemed like an hour) there was not a single avian tickle to be felt. And then four Wood Pigeons flew into view. Followed a further thirty seconds later by a Carrion Crow. And then a Herring Gull. I could have predicted those three species, the 21st century birders staple diet of pigeon, crow and gull. 95% of the Surrey bird biomass is made of that triumvirate I can confidently claim. It wasn't it always like this - or was it? When I returned home I picked up my notebook fro...

I don't automatically buy new editions of books that I already own. Quite often they can be almost straight reprints that offers the purchaser nothing more than having the same book but in better condition - and then there are those new editions that offer you an almost completely different book. British Moths , by Chris Manley, is one of the latter. Although boasting the same number of pages as the first edition, he has managed to include 800 additional species, most of these being micro moths. To accommodate this the butterflies have been dropped, but this is no loss considering the wealth of books available that cover them. So now we have 2,147 species to peruse, of which 871 are macros and 1,276 micros. If for no other reason, this boost in microlepidoptera makes buying this addition a must. But that is not all... Plenty of species that appeared in the first book have had their images updated, and all the photographs have had the subject rotated so that they all face the ...

It is said that an army marches on its stomach and the same can be said of the humble birder. I can trace certain foods to certain periods of my birding time, so much so that the smell or taste of them can send me careering back there... The Early Years My schoolboy birding expeditions were always accompanied by a packed lunch. If I went to Beddington SF then it would be a Breakfast Sausage sandwich (a circular processed meat that I haven't seen around for years) with Branston Pickle (other pickles are available). This would be followed by a Tunnock's Caramel Wafer. On a cold winters day these would be hard and brittle to bite into, but come the summer they would melt to the point of becoming a liquid. And talking of liquid, my flask would always be filled with coffee - unless I went to Epsom Common, when, for whatever reason, I would take soup. Dungeness When I first stayed at the observatory any food preparation had to be quick and simple - I wanted to be out birding, p...

My recent visit to Dungeness got me thinking about the avian changes that have taken place over the (almost) forty years that I have been going down to the shingle. I have already touched upon the egret explosion two posts ago - it is not everywhere that a fly over Great White Egret barely warrants lifting one's binoculars, but that is the situation at Dungeness! Gulls have seen an enormous surge of interest, largely down to one or two pioneering birders, including Peter Grant, one of DBO's very own. Back in 1976 large immature gulls were virtually unidentifiable, so sifting through any such flock was largely an exercise in trying to find a Glaucous or Iceland (the term 'white-winger' was not then common currency). PJG's obsession has been passed onto current warden Dave Walker, who studies the gulls avidly. He is responsible for finding all three Audouin's Gulls, plus a Ross's, fair reward for the many hours that he spends staring down his telescope. A ...

Tomorrow in LA, the film industry meets to decide which movie deserves to be awarded an Oscar. In honour of this, that motley crew of birders at Dungeness have come up with a selection of film titles that have been inspired by bird names. Read them and weep... Chariots of Firecrests The Loneliness of the Long Distance Roadrunner Look Back in Anhinga The Dam Bustards 101 Dalmatian Pelicans Raiders of the Lost Auk Sex, lies and Vireotape A Taste of Honey Buzzard 2001 a Space Osprey From Wheatear to Eternity Catbird on a Hot Tin Roof Mrs Minivet Greenshank Redemption Black Lark Down! The Rocky-hopper Picture Show Nightjar on Elm Street Texas Cranesaw Massacre Fall of the House of Upcher Day of the Tripits Butch Cassowary and the Sunbittern Kid Easy Eider You only live Twites So I had to join in... Acrocephalus Now! The Eider Sanction For whom the red polls On the waterthrush Taxi Diver Wuthering Kites Day of the Grackle Close encounters of a turdus kind ...