NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

I once knew a birder who spent most of the day - almost every day - in the field. But most of that time was not spent looking through his optics. He would spend it peering at the screen of his smart phone, or responding to the bleeps and whistles that came from a small device that I assumed was a pager. These two objects (phone and pager) dictated his birding life, from where he would be birding in the next hour right through to what he would do when he got there. Also, his awareness of those other birders around him was but periphery, such was his concentration on those devices. He had divorced himself from the reality of where he was and who he was with. However, such behavior, rather than being extreme, is actually quite common. Being able to communicate instantaneously is something that a bloke of my age does not take for granted. Who reading this can remember the run to a phone box after finding a rare bird, the frantic feeding of coins into the slot and the hope that the pers...

Basil-thyme (Clinopodium acinos) is not a plant that I've seen very often and certainly not locally. I had known of its existence on Banstead Downs for a while now but had never got around to paying it a visit - until today. A largish patch was out in flower and appears to be the only population present. It isn't common anywhere in north Surrey as far as I'm aware. It's a smart flower, not too showy but the white horse-shoe marking making it distinctive. You really need to be on chalk to find it, the UK distribution map suggesting that the North and South Downs, plus the run of chalk up from Dorset to Norfolk being prime habitat - but make no mistake, this is not a common species and it is local across a lot of its range. I couldn't resist posting a picture of this Fox-and-cubs (or Orange Hawkweed if you prefer), one of several hundred that I saw in flower in a meadow close to the River Mole at Leatherhead. They always brighten up any stroll.

It was announced this afternoon that Birdguides , the UK-based birding franchise, has secured the services of the disgraced Uruguayan footballer Luis Suarez. The deal is believed to cover the period  that FIFA have banned him from playing football, after he once again exhibited his homo-erotic habit of nibbling the shoulders of sweaty men dressed in tight fitting sports wear. Although Birdguides was not forthcoming as to how they were going to utilise Mr Suarez' services, it is believed that he will be used to police twitches, actively biting photographers that get too close to the Booms and Rares. A birder who wishes to remain anonymous told North Downs and beyond : "The twitching scene is getting out of hand. Although the crowds aren't what they used to be, the number of birders who bring big lenses to twitches is increasing, so much so that they get in the way of the normal birder, jostling for position to get decent shots to put on their boring blogs, getting too c...

Mr and Mrs CK and P Dunkley most probably don't mean that much to you. You may have never heard of them. But if you were to pick up any Surrey Bird Report from the 1960s and 1970s you would find their initials written all over the systematic list. They were avid patch birders. What I now have to tell you is a tale of my callow youth, in not knowing how things really were and in my having a misplaced sense of importance - for, in the mid 1970s, I came across the Dunkleys and dismissed them as irrelevant to my birding world. Let me explain… As a teenage birder, with little money and no car, I travelled to the better birding destinations by way of begging lifts or going on organized trips. The latter option was, I'm ashamed to say, considered beneath me, as I had to sit on a coach with 'dude' birders, mostly old and mostly not 'proper' exponents of birding. You can now see what an arrogant little shit I was. The Surrey Bird Club ran such trips and these see...

A couple of recent back garden moths... Reddish Light Arches. A species 'of the chalk', fairly regular in the garden MV. Small Yellow Wave. Not quite annual here.

After 36 hours of being without TV and internet connection (thanks Virgin!) I am now firmly back in the 21st century and as a family we can stop gathering around a piano, stop sewing and stop having to talk to one another... whatever next? Highlights from the past couple of days have been... Bastard-toadflax on Walton Downs... Bladder Senna in Banstead Woods The fifth garden record of Festoon (they always seem to be tatty)

This morning found me haunting the chalky slopes of Chipstead Bottom, as one of a band of fellow botanists and all-round naturalists who were part of Peter Wakeham's organised walk. As usual, Peter shared with us his knowledge of the area and expertise with the plants - you always come away the richer and wiser from his forays. And there were a few familiar faces in our number: local boys David Campbell, Ian Magness and Paul Goodman; Beddington absconders Nick Gardener and Peter Alfrey; plus I finally got to meet Bill Dykes, fresh from his 'second for Britain' micro moth success. I began a bit earlier in the day walking the rides of Banstead Woods in the hope of a Purple Emperor. They have been seen already this year on Bookham Common, but I drew a blank. Compensation came in the form of plenty of Marbled Whites, a firm favourite of mine. Other lepidoptera that gatecrashed the botanical party was a Blackneck (disturbed from vegetation but then on show for all to see), ...