NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

So, that's the first month of the year already over - went quick, didn't it! It was also the first month of the great year-long Surrey v Northumberland patch challenge, in which I have taken on Stewart Sexton to see who can attain the highest percentage figure of our personal historic totals. It's all a bit of fun, but it really does act as a spur to get you out there and looking. I do have a distinct advantage in being retired (I still cannot get used to saying that) but then he can boast coastline and slightly younger eyes which will surely make up for my extra hours in the field... As I have moaned about elsewhere, the number of birds present locally has been very poor indeed. Passerines in particular have gone missing in action, with the star flock being the 110+ Skylarks that are being faithful to Walton Downs. Although the weather has turned colder during the past few days, it has been largely unremarkable and the lack of movement unsurprising. Down to th...

In glorious sunshine a six-mile circular walk taking in Ranmore Common and Polesden Lacey was made with eldest daughter Rebecca. There were plenty of snow pockets to walk through and the trees on the higher ground were coated in icy granules that had started to melt in the warm sun. The birding was disappointing, although at least six Marsh Tits were recorded, including two in fine song. It would seem that the finch numbers are to be found further west along the ridge - out of uber patch range! A late afternoon visit to Canons Farm suggested that the cold weather may be having some affect on the birds, with an influx of Fieldfare (70) and an increase in Yellowhammer numbers, with 42 gathering to roost. A Barn Owl was hunting across the fields and along the edge of the wood up by Perrotts Farmhouse and a Little Owl was spied huddled up in an oak tree on the edge of Broad Field. From the top: male Kestrel; Little Owl, Yellowhammers, Meadow Pipit

Canons Farm isn't exactly a place that is synonymous with large gatherings of birds, but it has its moments. In any normal winter we have come to expect a certain suite of wintering flocks - several hundred mixed thrushes, three figure Linnet counts, clouds of Stock Doves and Woodpigeons sharing the soil with plenty of Starlings, Skylarks, Meadow Pipits and Yellowhammers, plus a swathe of corvids, which all means that even on a quiet day there are plenty of birds to look through. This winter things are different. There are barely any birds on show. All the above are present in disturbingly reduced numbers. To scan across the open fields is an exercise in desperately trying to find something to look at. I have ducked into the neighbouring Banstead Wood for some ornithological respite, but the hoped for roving flocks of tits and crests are also missing in action. Other sites reflect this morose situation. Priest Hill, Epsom Common, Mickleham, Box Hill, Epsom Downs, Walton Downs, ...

I have just finished reading Adam Thorpe's excellent book 'On Silbury Hill'. It is much more than an introduction to Europe's largest man-made prehistoric mound - covering the theories as to how and why it was built; accounts of the archeological digs that tried to discover what (and if) anything lay within; and the personal relationship that the author (and others) has had with it. The book is also part autobiography, part gazetteer of the Wiltshire ancient sites, a quick dip into paganism/druidism, and a lament on what we have lost in our uptake of all things technological. Although I've never visited Silbury Hill, the Wiltshire downland of much of the book's setting is my ancestral home. The Gale family left the open hills and farms for London at the end of the 19th century. My father returned twice - as an evacuee and retiree - and during his latter years I visited on many occasions, getting to know the countryside surrounding All Cannings, Pewsey and...

The Banstead Downs Conservators have obviously been busy recently, judging by the large area of scrub at the southern end of the site that has been cleared. Home to large colonies of both Small and Chalkhill Blue butterflies, this site management should do wonders for the spread of the butterflies food plants (Kidney and Horseshoe Vetch). When I first set foot on these downs in the mid-1970s it was an open area with light scrub, and still supported breeding Grasshopper Warbler and Tree Pipit. Both were gone by the 1990s, due to the scrubbing up on site and other factors away from the locality. Stirling efforts by work parties over recent years has opened up much of the area once again. I've always struggled to see much of ornithological interest here, but that has not been the case for all birders -  on 21st May 1956, W.P. Izzard had the good fortune to come across a Lesser Grey Shrike, and in addition, a Pratincole sp was observed by an unnamed observer flying over the downs ...

The early birder certainly does catch the worm Glaucous Gull. The second-winter beast that has been feeding/loafing during the day at the Beddington Landfill Cafe has decided to take up overnight lodgings on Mercer's Lake at Holmethorpe. It was reported coming into roost yesterday afternoon so I knew that an early arrival should secure the bird - it was, after all, a species that I had not seen before at Holmethorpe. I arrived in darkness, but still set up the scope and scanned the blackness - there were gulls already flying overhead and much calling from the water - and even in what could at best be described as pre-light, the gulls were shining out as they bobbed about on the lake surface. One bird shone out far more than the others - the Glaucous Gull (pictured above). I'm sure you can all tell which bird it is... The gull roost was quite spectacular, with 2,500 Herring and 1,500 Black-headed making up 99% of the larids on show. The birds were leaving very quickly, w...

It was dusk, and as I walked along the edge of the copse looked up into the top of the trees. The branches and twigs were etched out in a pitch black, a stark relief against an ice-blue sky that was tinted with rose petal pinks and moody violet. It was enough to halt my journey to take in this simple, common -  but beautiful - composition. My first thought was to take a picture of it - then, secondly, to use the resulting image for the basis of a painting. But I carried no camera. So I stood stock still and took it all in. And while I did so, had a little think... Why is it that, for some of us at least, when confronted with an arresting scene/plant/bird/insect our first thought is to reach out for the camera. Is it part of an ancestral need to own or shackle nature? To lock it down so that it cannot escape and becomes our possession? The written word is another tool that can be used to obtain the same result - do we feel the need to annotate, describe and commit the subject to...