NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Another addition to my Blog List, this time from Wanstead Birder . Anyone who can see 200 species of bird in London within a calendar year (and it isn't even October yet) is certainly worthy of a read. His latest post, which tells the tale of a route march to Blakeney Point to see a certain flycatcher, is well worth reading. The only time that I've trudged that same shingly ground didn't seem too bad to me, but then again it was during August and I was still in my fit twenties. That particular day was not a success - I had gone to see a Royal Tern, that didn't show, and was later identified as a Lesser Crested any way. Mistakes like that don't happen any longer, do they....

This is Tipula maxima , or a daddy-long-legs with heavily patterned wings to you and I. Please excuse the headache inducing peeling paint that it decided to land upon. Another tick (a very common tick) in my pointless rush towards 3,000 in my all-taxa UK list! A boy's got to have something to do, give me a break... Also, please spend a bit of time to visit the latest addition to my blog list, 'The Lyon's Den'. This chap knows how to mix and match his natural history and the lucky so-and-so does it for a living. Most envious.

There are still some days when the 'hard-core' birder within me tries to break out. Today was such a day. I was sitting on the beach at Ferring, in West Sussex with my family enjoying a rather fine picnic lunch. The sun was shining and the only ornithological interference came from a couple of Sandwich Terns that were patrolling the beach. Then the cloud arrived, and with it the first House Martins, which flew low and purposefully westwards, some of them passing inbetween our sitting group. After five minutes it was obvious that these hirundines were not an isolated flock but the vanguard of something altogether grander. I spent more time paying attention to the visible migrants (apart from when it was time for coffee and cake!) and it was then that I ached for that Empidonax flycatcher on Blakeney Point or one of the inland Gannets that have delighted a number of patchworkers. Calming my birding hyperventalation down, I kept calm, and for the next two hours reckoned on 12,00...

In my attempt to identify everything that is living in the UK, I thought that I would start off with this humble caddis fly. My Collins Insect guide kindly illustrates 29 species but also mentions that there are just under 200 species to be found in Britain. As my specimen (photograph above) matches none of them I had to admit that here was a family that needed deeper research. I went onto bioimages brilliant photographic website (thousands of obscure species at your fingertip) but still could not match up my insect. That leaves me with three options: investing in the Field Studies Council 'Guide to adult caddisflies' (only £3.50 folks!); appealing to someone out there knowing what this is; or more likely me never knowing its true identity.

This is Henbane. It is a member of the nightshade family and is very poisonous. It contains hyoscyamine and hyoscine, poisons that Doctor Crippin used to good effect when bumping off his wife back in the early 20th century. Unfortunately for him, a noose ended his own life shortly afterwards. I had not seen this species until last June, when I stumbled upon 20 healthy plants that were growing in a chalky field that had had large quantities of manure dumped upon it. They were of a good size and pleased me greatly. (It really doesn't take much to please me greatly nowadays). The field was along the banks of the River Mole between Mickleham and Leatherhead. Some authors consider this an evil looking plant, but I cannot see the darkness in it. In fact I reckon that Deadley Nightshade has more 'something of the night' about it. Please accept this post in lieu of not having anything else to bore you with.

So, you fancy broadening your natural history horizons. You've spent many happy days in the company of birds and as a by product of this have taken notice of the butterflies and dragonflies that you see buzzing around. Moths are a natural progression and of course you start to take an interest in their food plants, so you add botany to your wildlife arsenal. And now it all gets a bit tricky. I have started (and stopped) and started again to look at other things. Hoverflies. Fungi. Mosses and liverworts. Spiders. The truth is, they just aren't like the other families that I have studied. For a start, there are not fully comprehensive field guides to guide you through the species that you will find. You will be given a firm push towards which family or genus that the organism before you belongs to, but to be confident of identifying it to species level - well, that will now involve complicated keys (which are either obscure or a devil to use), microscopes and a dictionary (to fin...

Alan Tilmouth's latest post introduced me to one Jos Stratford , a Welsh birder who now lives in Lithuania. Please take a moment and visit his web site and look at the section entitled 'About Me'. This makes the life of the average MI5 double-agent seem positively sedate and uninteresting. His birding wanderings started when he was barely a teenager. He was scampering over Europe at the tender age of 15. I was, at that age, still having my nose wiped for me and asking for my pocket money so that I could go on daring expeditions as far as, oh let me see, the local chip shop. I've long been fascinated by my fellow birders who have the character, confidence and burning need to go off on long, distant trips. I'm all the more impressed if the trip has no defined length. A three week trip to Vietnam is commendable, but a birding odyssey that takes 'just as long as it takes' speaks to me of a devil-may-care attitude that I just do not possess. I've always play...