NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

When I first visited Dungeness Bird Observatory I became aware of a band of birders that were unlike any other birders that I had so far met in my formative years of birdwatching. They were all a few years older than me (mostly in their late-20s and early-30s) and appeared streetwise, long-haired, exotically dressed and could pepper their ornithological pronouncements with industrial language. I was impressed! I sought out their company, craved their approval and was slowly admitted into their orbit. But there was one of their number that was not present, who had drifted away from Dungeness to pioneer the vis-mig watches on the east-Kent coast at St. Margaret’s Bay. His name was Tony Greenland. It was not until 1979 that I met him, when he returned to visit Dungeness Bird Observatory (DBO) on a number of occasions throughout that year. I was slightly wary of his colourful reputation but we immediately got on like a house on fire - in fact he took me under his wing. That summer I was ac...

On the evening of 26 April 2022 I met up with fellow birder-cum-football fanatic Jake Everitt to watch the Sutton United v Crawley Town league clash. As we stood in the balmy sunshine, appreciating the home team's demolition of their West Sussex opposition (3-0 final score) we started to talk about the football grounds we had visited and - more pertinently - the species of bird we had seen while watching football. I was surprised to learn that there was another person barmy enough to keep a 'birds seen at football' list - I thought that I was alone in such a niche pastime. As it turned out Jake had been to many more grounds than me and also seen plenty more birds. My records of a Little Egret and Lapwing flying over Gander Green Lane just didn't cut it. There and then we decided to embark on a season-long competition (2022-23) to see who could record more species of bird from football grounds than the other, with the rules of combat being thrashed out. They were: The wi...

‘ Pan Species Listing - How to Become a Super-naturalist’ has recently been published by Pelagic and is authored by Graeme Lyons. Regular visitors to ND&B will be familiar with Graeme as his blog appears in my blog list (found to the left) and he has featured on these very pages more than once. I think that I can safely refer to Graeme as a friend as we have spent time in the field together on several occasions (including some one-to-one sessions) and have conversed on subjects beyond those of natural history. I was therefore more than intrigued to find out what form his book on the subject would take. When he told me that he had been commissioned to write it I assumed that it would be mainly about his personal journey - I was wrong. Having now read the book and lived with it for a few weeks I feel in a position to review it. Putting it simply, it is a book that all naturalists should invest in whether they are a pan-species lister or not. It might only be late March but I feel co...

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...