NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Ever since I was a young lad I've liked to walk. Offers of a lift would be politely turned down - I wanted to walk. To see what was around me, whether that be a panoramic view, interesting architecture or getting a feel for an area. In later life it also included looking at the wildlife. When I go into London I'll shun the underground as there are parts of the capital that are hidden away from you unless you walk the pavements - lively side-streets, tucked away museums, discreet churches, fantastic pubs. When I was very ill (some 30 years ago now) I refused to lie down and used my walking as a way to keep fit both mentally and physically. And now that I am well advanced in years I use walking as a way of oiling my joints, stretching my muscles and helping the grey matter to keep working. I do not take my ability to 'put in the steps' for granted and when I do it is an act of celebration and, if I'm being honest, a way of trying to keep ageing at bay. There is, I...

May 30th. There were none at dawn, but a couple of hours later they suddenly appeared, as if dropped en mass onto the very tip of Dungeness - Painted Lady butterflies (above). Every flowering Red Valerian plant held them and on approach they fell from the flower-heads, either onto the shingle or would circle off together, taking the short flight to the nearest source of nectar. Others did not move, busily feeding, refuelling from their cross-channel flight and getting ready for their next northward push. There were hundreds, possibly low thousands. I walked the road northwards from the lighthouses to the estate entry gate and sought out the Red Valerian - not as much as formerly found - each clump dripping with this migrant lepidoptera. It was mesmerising, these orange, black and white visitors from North Africa and the continent that had shared their arrival alongside some saharan dust and a cast of rare migrant moths. By lunchtime they had all gone, melted away. It left me feeling be...

"Prrrp...prrrp..." There aren't many bird calls that can illicit such a strong response from the birder than that of a European Bee-eater. They are uncommon enough to be valued, colourful of plumage to the extreme, graceful in flight and are rainbows with wings. Redolent of the Mediterranean and the Middle East they bring glamour and excitement to our ordinary world. So when I heard one call whilst eating an ice-cream and sitting chatting to Dave Bunney I knew that the day had just got a whole lot better - and more were to come! That afternoon (May 24th) we were to be treated to at least four of them flying around the point, giving their position away with calls to then reward us with low fly passes. Two of them decided to hang around Kerton Road Pit for long enough to enable all-comers to feast their eyes upon these apparitions calved from the sun, perching up on wires or sweeping above in the blue skies, feeding and calling, feeding and calling, feeding and calling. Bli...

I’ve just returned from a further spell of 12 days at Dungeness in Kent, making use of the facilities offered by Dungeness Bird Observatory (DBO). Once again this magical shingle kingdom bestowed upon me a trip that was full of highlights - further posts will cover the birds, invertebrates and detail one very long walk that was undertaken in the heat - but this post will concentrate on the emotions that were stirred during this late-May period, owing to a mixture of feeling the spirit of the Ness, interacting with the people who populated it and the sheer wonder of being able to walk across the shingle - at different times of day - and feel blessed to be part of something so huge that could inexplicably and suddenly collapse into something so small and personal. I cannot put my finger on it, and in some respects am glad that I can’t, but there are special forces - benign powers - that govern this corner of Kent. The overriding theme of this stay was of heat. Rarely have I felt so hot i...

Harry Cawkell would tap his pipe out, lean back into the common room chair, survey the eager faces before him and then begin. Anecdotes and stories, gossip and rumour, all had a place in the show that had now started. Harry, Dungeness Bird Observatory’s (DBO) long standing honorary secretary, loved nothing more than to talk about ‘the old times’ with any birders that happened to be in his orbit when he popped into the obs. For those of us who had known Harry for a few years the stories would be familiar, but we listened with avid interest regardless. Some of his stories were so familiar, and so rarely did he deviate in their telling, that we would know exactly what words were about to be spoken. Some of these became catchphrases. Harry’s stories - and Harry’s telling of them - became part of the Dungeness story itself. And then, in 1999, Harry died. And with him went those stories… They didn’t entirely go. Some of us remembered them, or at least the odd personally selected highlight. I...

Dungeness is a superb location for seeking out invertebrates, be they common-place or specialists. For a 'jack of all trades' like myself - and certainly no expert - such immersion into the world of insects can be daunting, but ultimately highly rewarding. Identification down to species level will not be possible for many of the individuals that you might come across, but sometimes just being able to identify the creature before you to a specific family is reward enough. And, at times, you just need to admit defeat when you realise that the bee you are watching might just be a hoverfly, or even a wasp - it is OK to hold your hands up and surrender! You are also opening yourself up to life on a steep learning curve when looking at tiny insects with the aid of a magnifying glass or a loop, only to realise that there are even smaller insects alongside them. Are these even smaller beasts a different species or nymphs of the larger ones with them? Questions, questions... A few of my...

It was but a month ago that I suggested that staying at Dungeness Bird Observatory (DBO) might be a thing of the past for me. Seeing that I have just returned from a week’s residency at that very same establishment proves that I really do not know my a*** from my elbow… And what an enjoyable week it was. There may not have been the volume of migrants that were hoped for,  but there was rarity, there was a more than passable passage at sea, the invertebrates were forthcoming and the pleasure to be gained from meeting up with friends old and new was priceless. It will come as no surprise to even the most casual of visitors to this blog that the shingle, once again, burrowed its way deep inside of me and on more than a few occasions I found myself stopping in my tracks to take in special moments - I will try to put these moments into words, although words can rarely evoke the feelings that these jolts of joy produce. Star billing went to Dungeness’s third Iberian Chiffchaff, found sin...

Monday 12th April 1976 was when I first trod on the Kentish Dungeness shingle and walked through the front door of the world famous bird observatory (pictured above). I had arrived to become a participating member of an RSPB residential course which was being lead by the society's investigations officer Peter Robinson. Little did I know at the time that I was about to embark on a lifetime's infatuation with all things Dungeness. I have written an awful lot about my time at Dungeness, much of it scattered throughout this blog, so will try not to replicate it here. There was a time when there was nowhere else on Earth that I would rather be and although such manic devotion may have cooled down in recent years it is still a place that causes me to feel a swathe of emotions - happiness, inspiration, longing and, if I'm being really honest, a bit of sadness. My choice of visiting Dungeness was purely by chance - had the RSPB chosen to run that course at Sandwich Bay or Portland ...

Time, its passing and the effects that it has upon us is something that readily colours my birding. Apart from being a handy hook to hang a rare bird or spectacular movement on, a date can also bring to memory a place, people, a conversation, a feeling. A bit of a Proust's madeleine cake moment. I was idly daydreaming about birding places recently and my mental rolodex randomly settled upon Portland Bill. September 1977 sprang immediately to mind. Why then and not the date that I saw a Yellow-billed Cuckoo (September 1979) or Ivory Gull (February 1980) on that fair island? I then recalled that September 1977 visit - not blessed with loads of birds, certainly no rarity - but blessed with a calming, restful, place defining moment. Us young birders (for we were young back then) were crammed into a smallish car, parked on the road that heads downhill towards the car park and obelisk. The observatory was full, so no bed was to be had there. Our student pockets would not stretch to a hot...

Back in the summer we lost another of the birding family, Barry Banson. Had I been maintaining this blog at the time I would have written about him there and then, so please accept my belated words of celebration of the man, one who was a great influence on me, moulding my natural history interests with the result that it took me to the four corners of Britain in pursuit of wild flowers. I first met Barry while birding at Beddington SF in the mid-1970s. He was, at the time, a schoolmaster at Alleyn's, a public school based in Dulwich. I think it is fair to say that the schoolmaster never fully left Barry, who did not suffer fools gladly and treated many people as if they were a pupil in one of his classes. regardless of their age or station in life. Having said that, once you got beyond that veneer of authority he was an utterly charming and interesting person to spend time with, a man of many interests, with natural history and sport at the top of a long list. In those early days ...

In birding, timing can mean the difference between an average day in the field and that of a spectacular one. Good timing can be helped by reading the weather conditions correctly, or understanding local conditions but it is more often down to pure luck. In this case, I just got lucky... I had not visited Dungeness since March 2022, quite a gap for me. It was high time that I once more trod the shingle and my timing of a visit was down to several factors, mostly a personal liking for mid-late autumn but also because I needed to be at home until September 20th and could not make the journey south until then. I also chose to stay at the bird observatory for a few days rather than make it a day trip. All this conveniently found me stepping outside the observatory's back door in the breaking dawn of Sunday 22nd September, quickly making my way to the fishing boats, an area I prefer to stand to best appreciate any visible bird migration, an aspect of birding that I find exhilarating.  A...

I don't know what has sparked it off, but a number of birders on social media have voiced their dissatisfaction about the way in which certain organisations are managing nature reserves. Along with my thoughts about the Surrey Wildlife Trust's custodianship of Holmethorpe (see last post), there have been missiles lobbed at the Kent Wildlife Trust (Oare Marshes) and the RSPB (Dungeness). I can add my two-pennies about the latter... The reserve at Dungeness has come on an awful long way since my first visit in 1976. There has been much beneficial habitat creation, with 'new' reed beds that now support Bitterns, Marsh Harriers and Bearded Tits, and a mosaic of water bodies that are excellent for wildlife beyond birds. The visitor centre, when it was opened, was a massive step up from the wooden hut that used to stand there. And where there was just the one hide, at least nine are now scattered across the reserve. So, what's not to like? If I were being uncharitable, th...