NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

A dip in the temperature, with grey skies and rain, certainly turned my internal 'seasonal dial' from summer to autumn. It also had me indulging in the unforgivable act of looking back through the year - sheer madness for September 9th! But what I discovered was quite interesting... It will be (unless something mightily dramatic happens in the next four months) my quietest year's birding ever. There are some species that I haven't seen that would make most of you report me to the ornithological police for 'not trying'. I've left Surrey rarely, and when I have it's been mostly for social reasons. And the time spent birding in my home county has been infrequent, with the highlights being few: (i) Massive Hawfinch flock at Mickleham (twitched by several hundred birders) (ii) Male Black Redstart in the back garden (stayed for 11 days) (iii) Dead Kittiwake at Holmethorpe Hardly the stuff of ornithological legend (although the Hawfinches might just be ...

When I look back on 2012, one thing dominates, and that was the summer month that I spent at Dungeness. It was a pleasure and privilege to be able to walk away from my work and live the life of a 'birding bum'. Having said that, I spent most of the time looking at plants and moths. To be a free spirit and wander across the shingle was, in a way, an exercise in time travel, as it recaptured the summers of the late 1970s when I did exactly the same. Age has given me an appreciation of other natural history orders and an understanding that to be able to act in such a carefree way is something that should not be taken for granted. Once I was back in the office the break took on a golden glow... Blogging, tweeting, texting - they are all useful technological tools. I have found myself a slave to them all but at the same time bored by them. Too many banal messages (I'm as guillty as anyone else), repetitive images (Waxwings, Waxwings, Waxwings) and unfunny in-jokes have driven ...

With only five weeks (ish) until the start of a new year, as is my custom, I have prepared the way by making plans for my natural history assault on 2013. I find it hard to start a year with no aims at all. I cannot contemplate just mooching about, visiting here and there just to see what's occuring. There is no form nor function in doing so (unless I stumble across a wintering mega, in which case all analysis is off). My main thrust will be concentrated on my uber patch - that is all of my local patches which, when strung together, wiggle from Ranmore in the SW to Beddington in the NE - about a 15 mile wiggle. I have already collated my bird observations across this area (since 1974) and created my own personal and 'virtual' bird report, something that I love to update. Within this uber patch is found Beddington SF, Holmethorpe SP, and Canons Farm which, for an inland birder, offers plenty of scope. What I want to do next year is compile a similar report for plants and...