NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

At the back end of 2014 I posted my 'Top Ten Natural History Moments', the result of a trawl through my notebooks that I had kept since 1974. It was an enjoyable exercise. Five years have elapsed since then - but in that timeframe have I got another ten moments of natural history joy to share with you? You bet. So here they are, in descending order... 10. Clover-fest at Dungeness In May 2018 I was staying at Dungeness Bird Observatory, spending a great deal of time in the company of Jacques Turner-Moss, the assistant warden at DBO. He was a delight to be with, a down-to-earth, unassuming and most talented naturalist. He had taken a keen interest in the plants that grew on the shingle, and when he became aware of my wish to track down Clustered Clover - a species of plant that had always evaded me - he was up for joining me in my quest. First of all we travelled to the northern end of the Littlestone sand dunes, an area known to hold this species. A good couple of hours was...

With a nagging, cool northerly wind the birding was never going to creep above mundane, and it didn't. The beauty of Dungeness is that if the birds are a no-show then you can fall back on plants and insects - we chose the former. The sand dunes of Littlestone beckoned, with public land on the seaward side of the golf course chosen to explore. This area is well known botanically, and we were delighted to find a good number of notable species. The main target was Clustered Clover, a plant that I have failed to find here a number of times. Despite clear directions, and knowing that we were in the right place, it took an hour's searching before we had to admit defeat. Our sixty minutes of crawling around on all fours had paid off however, as some of the other clovers present were not so difficult, with Burrowing, Knotted, Birdsfoot, Rough, and Haresfoot also being recorded. There was masses of Bird's-foot (not the clover), Annual Knawel and plenty of Smooth Cat's-ear to f...