NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

On Monday morning I left Horsham town centre clutching an OS map of the area and headed out eastwards to explore. There was no agenda and no firm plan other than to follow my instincts and try to end up on the high ground west of Handcross. All the footpaths that I walked were unknown to me and so the habitat that I came across and the views that opened up before me were, by and large, surprises - a lucky dip kind of day. It is a wonderful way to get to know an area and any expectations that I might have harboured were exceeded! This ‘blind tasting’ is something that I will do more of. The habitat was characterised by wet woodland criss-crossed by many streams with accompanying pools and ponds. There were also several large medieval hammer ponds, the streams having been dammed to create the right conditions for the water to power huge hammers (which were built alongside accompanying furnaces) that pounded the iron-rich clay to extract the metal for the production of armaments. The sign...

Back in June 2010 I was walking along the banks of the River Mole, heading towards the Young Street Car Park from Mickleham. A series of fields between the river and railway line were usually left as grass, but on this occasion piles of farmyard waste had been dumped across them, transforming the normal green monoculture into an altogether stranger terrain. But what was most striking about this unexpected scene was the presence of a disturbing and exotic flower growing from the mounds - Henbane (pictured above and directly below). Like mini-Trifids they stood upright from the mud and mulch, the serrated and hairy leaves topped off by cream flowers, large lobed and netted with an intricate maroon-brown scribbling, at their centre a pool of dried blood. They exuded an other-worldliness. It was a species that I had longed to see but the erratic nature of their appearance had ensured that it had eluded me. Finally, thanks to the farmer's dumped soil I had connected! Dumped soil. Doesn...

This is the fourth in an occasional series looking at bird species that have fared well - and those not so well - across the uberpatch over the last 50-odd years. In some ways the Tree Sparrow has shown the greatest decline of all the birds in my 50+ years of birding across the uberpatch. From expected flocks of over 200 birds to none at all is some fall from grace, one that is all the harder to take as the Tree Sparrow was considered a flagship species - an icon even -  for Beddington SF. When I first trod the fields and sludge lagoons of this fabled sewage farm they were ubiquitous. Flocks were easy to come by, feeding on the seeds of fat-hen or grazing on the screening deposits that included filtered food particles, their chocolate brown crowns, black splurged cheeks and conversational chatter a welcome - and expected - part of any visit. They bred in the outbuildings and the holes in the concrete dykes. My peak counts of 200 all occurred in 1978 (25 February, 22 March and 26 No...

  "Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it."  Soren Kierkegaard I had found myself in an uncomfortable place. Maudlin and retrospective what with the impending first anniversary of my sister's passing; saddened at the recent loss of several of the birding community; still trying to shake off the effects of a virus that manifested itself back in mid-December; unable to inject some oomph into everyday life. No doubt that the recent largely grey and wet weather had not helped at all in my seeking out some sunny uplands. Yesterday I decided that, seeing as retail therapy does nothing for me, some walking therapy would do instead. At 06.30hrs I left the house with a vague route in mind, ignored the chilly and blustery westerly wind, put my best foot forward... and repeated t...

This blogging lark has hidden depths, one of them being the privilege of connecting with fellow bloggers in a far deeper way than just reading what they write and leaving the odd comment on their blog. I have, over the years, met up with several of them and corresponded on a more personal level with a few more. One of them was Dylan Wrathall. His blog 'Of Esox and observations' was a regular stop off of mine. At first glance it seemed to be mainly about fishing, something that I have not taken part in since I was a surly teenager being dragged along to a riverbank by my Dad and fishing brothers. But Dylan's reputation went far beyond that of an angler as he was a well-known Kent birder, who for a time tore across the county in pursuit of year list records, so I knew that there would be a fair number of ornithological nuggets to find, particularly from his home in Dumpton. And together with the posts about birds you'd also find those dealing with moths, butterflies, ins...

Vicarious: experiencing something indirectly through the actions, feelings, or experiences of another person, rather than doing it yourself To me, if you can happily live life by gaining pleasure from living vicariously then you have a pretty good life balance. Those that suggest that you need 'to do' in order to fulfil some sort of obligation that we owe to the universe are, in my mind, wide of the mark. These thoughts came back to me strongly recently and seemed ripe for a bit of bloggage... I have, and never will, surf. However, I am absolutely wrapped up in watching 'big wave' surfing videos (eg Riding Giants), binge-watching TV series (such as 100-foot Wave) and reading books (like Barbarian Days by William Finnegan) and can claim a fascination with all things extreme surfing. I will, I repeat, never surf and have no inclination to do so. Watching others do it, and do it with so much skill and bravado is enough for me. I can feed off of their excitement, feel their...