NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Back in 1973, an American teenage birder by the name of Kenn Kaufman spent the year birding across North America, in an attempt to see more species of bird in a calendar year than anybody had recorded before. He wrote an account of those 12 months directly afterwards, but was so disappointed with the result that he hid the finished manuscript in a box. It was not until 1997 that it was dusted down and, with the help of professional editors and his own growth as a writer, it was published. I’m glad that it was. I was aware of this book, a modern birding classic, but had not read it. Over recent months, birder Mervyn Jones has implored me to do so, as it is a book that he holds in the highest regard. This Christmas I finally got hold of a copy and, over the past two days, have done so. What a fantastic read. The fact that the book has been written from the perspective of an older man looking back on his younger self give the words so much more gravitas and meaning. The skill in the writi...

Just before Christmas I had a spring clean of my natural history memberships/subscriptions. Three of them bit the dust and for differing reasons. First up was the RSPB. I had been a member for over 40 years. My reasons for cancelling membership were down to a few episodes of shoddy treatment towards certain individuals I know who had worked, or volunteered for the organisation. I won’t mention names or places. These episodes make me feel as if the society that I first patronised back in the late-1970s had become an altogether different animal, one that puts money before people without a second’s thought. Maybe this is the way of the big charities today, but it saddens me. The next casualty is the periodical ‘British Wildlife’. I have subscribed (on and off) for maybe 15-20 years, but have increasingly found that I was only reading 50% of it. The third up is The Wildflower Society, a modest and charming collection of botanists but one which I am no longer an active part of. The £100 or ...

There are days when I decide that I am going to bin Twitter. These are the days when I spend far too long reading through the tweets and when I tweet something that becomes contentious. Days when... you get the picture. But when I think such thoughts I remember that this platform has become my primary source for latest bird information, world news alerts and social contacts. It is also a place that I can tweet out any old rubbish and then have a conversation. These are my tweets for today: As you can see, a right old mix of the banal and vaguely interesting. But they did elicit some response and a bit of banter. I also responded to tweets posted by other users and so became embroiled in conversations as diverse as the 1989 Kent Golden-winged Warbler, #BWKM0, and Kent birders. They say that television is the 'thief of time', but that could just as well apply to Twitter. Sometimes a tweet just takes off for no particular reason - this one garnered over 1200 likes. It also produce...

Next year will see a laid-back attempt to hit the following targets across the uber-patch (above): Birds (140 species); Plants (700 species); Moths (500 species); Butterflies (38 species) and Dragonflies (18 species). I will also keep a record of how many footsteps I take in the search of them all - the aim is of completing 1,000,000, although seeing that my total so far this year is now over four million that shouldn't be a challenge. As much as failure in any category will elicit no more than a shrug from me, I will give each one a go and hope that in the effort to do so the local patches will carry on revealing something of themselves to me. Each and every year produces surprises, as no year is the same as any other. The bird total is going to be the biggest challenge, but it is always good to have an aim that will stretch oneself. As for the moths and plants, the need to attempt identifications across difficult groups and families can only be educational. I'm already ch...

10.02hrs. 21st December 2020. The precise moment when the days start to lengthen, and no longer shorten. A time to look forward to birth, growth, regeneration. Maybe also a time to believe that we are also on the right path to a return to some form of normality. The pagan in me celebrates this moment. I will raise a cup of mead, look to the skies and hope that the coming spring can restore our collective wellbeing, both mentally and physically. Wherever you are and whatever you believe in, may you find comfort and peace.

The last of my brief 2020 round-ups involves plants. Although I was out-and-about in the field a great deal I cannot recall a year when I seemed to see so little botanically. But there were three stand-out moments... Denbies Hillside, May. I came across this striking colour variation of Scarlet Pimpernel. I've seen red, orange, rose and blue, but never a plum-coloured flower. It was my botanical highlight of the year. Norbury Park, June. I was too late to see many of them in flower, but the number of Green Hound's-tongue plants was staggering - an estimated 10,000 covering sections of the eastern wooded slopes. Box Hill, June. Always keen to see Ground-pine at a new site, this particular plant appeared courtesy of a small scrape that had been created to encourage the growth of Kidney Vetch.

After what seems like several months of Christmas being force-fed to me, I am now happy to concede that this ‘season to be jolly’ is upon us. Not being religious means that this festival is, for me, one based on companionship, food, drink and relaxation - normally. This year will be different, whatever your take on Christmas. Reduced congregations or closed churches, smaller gatherings at home, suppressed jollity out of respect to those who have left us or continue to struggle with this virus... I sometimes think that, apart from the truly religious, anything else pertaining to Christmas this year has an air of triviality about it. I’m not going to debate the why’s-and-wherefore’s, the do’s-and-dont’s and the right’s-and-wrong’s - we will all conduct ourselves as we believe we should over the coming week or two. We can but hope that the vaccine roll-outs speed up, they work well, and that by the spring we might just be entering the start of normality, although I would question as to wh...