NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

After a few of days of feeling 'under the weather' I needed to get out for some fresh air, so took the easy option of parking the car at Canons Farmhouse so that I could walk along the lane to Lunch Wood and back. When getting as far as the wood, I turned to walk back only to be faced with a solid wall of black cloud - there was no option but to huddle under a beech tree and wait for twenty minutes while it poured with rain. Compensation came in the form of a double rainbow as the weather headed east (above). Reeds Rest Cottages were the centre of the action, with a mobile flock of 130 Swallows that alternated between the overhead wires and Broad Field, all scattering when a patrolling Hobby cruised through. Two Wheatears were together on the recently trimmed hedgerow, close to the RRC barns (above), and a Peregrine was sat on one of the dead trees on Stoney Nob, looking quite cheesed off with life as the black clouds gathered (below). Warblers were thin on the ground, ...

The garden MV continues to get put out and switched on. Those moths whose flight times are more 'September' than 'July' are starting to show, and each night the composition of species recorded is subtly changing. It's "goodbye" to some for another year and "hello" to others. There are also plenty of migrants out there, so it is risky not lighting up, as you never know what you might miss if you don't! I continue to dabble with the micros, by no means critically examining each and every one, but looking at some which catch my eye, like the Scythropia crataegella (above), not just a new moth for the garden, but one I haven't seen before. Common as muck by the way. Bird wise, quiet. My last two visits to Priest Hill have been almost pointless (barring the thought that at least I have proven that no fall or movement had taken place). This morning I revisited my old stomping ground at Canons Farm, where a Whinchat and Hobby were the star...

Part 13:  June-July 1976 Since my earliest visits to Beddington I had frequently met up with Ken Parsley and Mike Netherwood, who were the sole surviving members of the farm’s ringing group, which had been formed during the 1950s. Under the auspices of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), the group collected data by trapping birds. This was done mainly through their capture in a fine meshed net, strung out between two secured poles. On calm days the net would be hard to see, and birds would fly into it, finding themselves cushioned in a pocket, quietly awaiting extraction by a ringer. Once in the hand, the bird would be identified, sexed and aged; a set of measurements would be taken, such as wing length and weight; and a light metal ring placed on a leg. On this ring would be embossed a unique serial number and an address to send details of the bird in case of recovery. This latter stage helped build up a clear idea of where birds moved to, how fast they could travel and th...

An early afternoon visit to Priest Hill which could have been sponsored by Sleepeezee Beds it was so soporific. None the less, it did include a Peregrine (that was almost the first bird I clapped eyes on) and this Kestrel that, like most of the Kestrels at Priest Hill, just love posing for the camera.

When I first became interested in moths I got hold of both volumes of South - it was an ancient publication, but they were the best books then available. I looked through the colour plates and started to draw up a list of fantasy species - those that I wondered if I would ever be lucky enough to see? Two stood out in particular. Death's-head Hawk-moth and the absurdly named Clifden Nonpareil. Both big. Both stunning. And both seemingly unobtainable... However, Dungeness was the place that happily provided me with both. In September 1990 I happened to be staying at the Bird Observatory when Sean Clancy trapped the later species in his (then) garden at Delhi Cottage. My first glimpse of that powder-blue underwing stripe sandwiched between black, with a pearly grey and white frill was a moment that I will never forget. The Victorian lepidopterists sought this 'Blue Underwing' out with a fervour, and it was considered the ultimate prize. Although it has, from time to time ...

Earlier today, Katrina and I met our good friends Gordon and Mieko Hay for a pub lunch at the Inn on the Pond, Nutfield Marsh. This is just a stone's throw from Holmethorpe SPs, and - it just so happened - Gordon and I had taken our optics along for the outing... cue post lunch walk, which took in a loop around Spynes Mere. The still, muggy air was most conducive to a bit of odonata action, with the most numerous species present being the 15-20 Willow Emerald Damselflies. They were happy to perch for the camera, but as a subject were difficult to capture well with the bridge camera. The best of my effort is above. If you want to see good quality images, take a look at what Marc Heath produces here   -  just shows you what skill, patience and top notch equipment can result in, three elements in which I sadly lack.

Since I last posted, Priest Hill has been given a good grilling on several occasions. It has been quite hard work, with few migrants either passing overhead or having been grounded. Needless to say, mid-to-late August is rarely totally useless, so a single Tree Pipit (20th) and two Wheatears (this morning) did their best to rescue the situation. This is a project worth pursuing - even though the site may be 99.9% dry and in reality just a large area of playing fields (mostly abandoned) - as it possesses little ornithological record. And just as I felt with Canons Farm, it appears to have plenty of potential. I make no excuses for the overload of Wheatear images that accompany this post. As Tony the Tiger used to say (ask your parents), "THEY'RE GREAT!!" After a quiet mothing week (save for a fly-by Hummingbird Hawk-moth on 18th) this morning's MV haul was rather good. Star capture was a Scarce Bordered Straw (below, the garden's 7th and first since 2006...