NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Time is up, the white-arses have been counted and the results are in! I am delighted to announce that Martin Casemore is the winner of the 2019 ND&B Wheatear Trophy , with a new White-arse record count. Professor O. E. Nanthe from Brighton University (left) presented the trophy to a well scrubbed-up Martin during a ceremony held in a marquee on Dungeness beach this morning. Afterwards, a tearful Martin spoke to me: "I was really pleased when you decided to run the Wheatear competition again. I was in a bad place, I had become obsessed with gulls. I was swimming out to the islands on Burrowes Pit to roost with them at night; I was going into Hastings on summer days and nicking chips and ice-cream off of the holiday makers along the sea-front; and had even started to shit on people's cars. The final straw was when I met up in secret with 'other' gull enthusiasts, where we would dress up as our favourite gull species and imitate their calls. I was always a Caspi...

Well, my last post was a bit 'down' wasn't it. Feeling sorry for myself, wasn't I... After a couple of days to cheer myself up - and even with a bit of naff birding included as well - I have come to a happy place once more. I've realised for some time that, if one wants to be all 'worthy' and plough the lonely patch-birding-furrow, then you'd better accept and put up with fallow periods. It's no different for those watching the coastal hot-spots, it's all relative. I could get in the car and drive for 90 miles, go to Pagham or Dungeness, but to be honest why join the hordes already there? It isn’t a case of 'been there, done that' because if I lived close to those places I would, without doubt, bird them - but would maybe choose some of the lesser watched areas that can still be found there. Believe it or not they do exist even in the most ‘birdied-out’ sites. I've often mentioned this little gem of a quote from Bernard Venables, ...

There are times when birding can seem like a chore. I find that a terrible thing to admit to - after all, shouldn't it be a care-free, pleasurable and please-yourself activity? No-one asks you to do it. You don't have to pick up those optics and go outside. The choice is yours... But. Birding is, or more accurately, can be, a results driven enterprise. You put the time in and the rewards come your way. At least that is how it normally works. This year has seen me spend an awful lot of time birding locally. Epsom and Walton Downs. Canons Farm. Priest Hill. Mogador. Colley and Box Hill. The River Mole. Even Holmethorpe. All have had their moments, but those moments are modest. Ornithological crumbs, and crumbs that are largely to be expected. My mantra of "every poor day's birding is one day's birding closer to a good one" is starting to wear thin. So I double my effort. Check a site more than once in a day. Stay out a bit longer. It is late April after...

I'm indebted to Gordon and Mieko Hay who alerted me to the presence of this magnificent Pasqueflower on the chalky slopes of Denbigh's Hillside. Whether it is here down to human hand or wind-blown seed, I do not know. However it got here it is more than welcome as far as I'm concerned. I have seen a single, lonely plant on chalk downland before, at Martin Down on the Wiltshire/Hampshire border. That is considered to be native. As for this Surrey specimen? Wiser men and women than me will have an opinion.

Dawn at Holmethorpe. Under a clear sky there was never going to be a bumper drop of migrants, but within an hour it was clear that Gordon and I were going to have to dig deep to unearth any highlights. Apart from a modest suite of warblers (Cetti's, Reed, Sedge, Blackcap, Whitethroat, Chiffchaff and Willow), a Common Sandpiper and a paltry handful of hirundines it was hard work. A two-hour mid-morning skywatch from Nutfield Ridge was characterised by rising temperatures, a southerly flow of gulls (500+ Herring and 30 Lesser Black-backed) and three pristine Yellow Wagtails. A stop off at Mogador on the way home was soporific on many counts, not least the lack of birds, although the two Swallows in the photograph above posed for a picture. We spend all Winter dreaming of Spring, and when it comes a lot of our birding time is taken up wondering where all the birds are and whether or not the odd surprise will be thrown in for good measure. I'm due a good day...

That figure is the number of hits this blog received yesterday. 5,492. It is a load of old b#llocks. On a good day I might have 500 that come and take a peek at my modest wares. It’s normally between 350-450. But not 5,492. A bit of detective work suggests a lot of visitors from the USA and Philippines, via a whole raft of dodgy sounding entry sources, although strangely enough also from some of my linked blogs. It is all down to bots making hits to big up other sites, to fool analytics into creating back links to the offending sites, all fake news, all a part of our crazy digital world that I am fast realising is broken. As an antidote, let’s have a picture to sooth our fevered brows... "See that bloke's ice cream over there? Reckon we could fly over and nick it?"

I’m hoping someone out there might have the answer to my little problem - I currently cannot reply to any comments that are left on this blog. I am logged in on Blogger, this blog sees me as ‘Steve Gale’, but when I go to comment on a reply (or leave a comment on another blog) I’m identified as ‘Google account’ and whatever I try to post disappears into thin air. I’ve tried logging off and back in again, tried to find a solution on-line, but to no avail. Anybody got any bright ideas? Thanks in anticipation of an easy solution... Oh, by the way, when I look at the ‘homepage’ of this blog, above the header and to the right, it says ‘create blog’ and ‘sign in’. This would ordinarily have a suite of options that includes ‘create post’. If I click on ‘sign in’ it does just that - allows me to post, create, change layout etc but not comment. Weird.