NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

...a Dunnock whose photo was taken some time last week and certainly not on a Thursday. This is was happens when it is blowing a hoolie outside, it is pouring with rain, and when I open up a blog post and my mind blanks. Today's big news is that Welsh Owen has been roundly beaten by English Lee in the making of Welsh Cakes, a kind of retro 'Dungeness Bake Off' if you will. I will now post images of some of my recent baking efforts in an attempt to join in and fill some space. Expect Kentish Jacques to join in the fun very soon... Apple and Apricot Cake Dorset Apple Cake Lime, Ginger and Coconut Cake

  Dank early starts seem to be a theme so far this year in Banstead, this mornings rain doing little to help brighten up an already stygian sky. By the time I'd made the short journey to Canons Farm, a developing brightness in the sky soon gave way to a couple of wintry showers. Undaunted, I donned the wellington boots and braved the muddy interior... The farm was quiet. As any seasoned Canons birder will tell you though, even if the first 19 fields you check are empty, the 20th might just hold the prize. My prize(s) were not of the rare, or even of the scarce, but of several flocks that were, if nothing else, notebook fodder. Highlights of 40 Skylark, 40 Fieldfare, 80 Redwing, 200 Starling, 210 Chaffinch, 170 Linnet and 3 Yellowhammer can hardly be called shabby though. A tame Dunnock (top) and Blackbird (below) posed for the camera.

English bird names just haven’t had the same amount ofimagination or free-form thinking   put into them as some other natural history orders have. Moths   ( The Alchemist, Merveille du Jour , The Suspected) and fungi (Destroying Angel, Slippery Jack, Dead Man’s Fingers) certainly have. They sound like characters from the works of Tolkien and Dickens. Compare them to Dunnock. What a dull name. It is, it must be said, not a remarkable bird to look at even if it has a very interesting sex life (look it up if you are curious). The derivation of the name ‘Dunnock’ is, according to Wikipedia: “this usage(Dunnock) has much to be said for it, based as it is on the oldest known name for any of the species (old English dun-, brown, + - ock, small bird: "little brown bird"), and a much more euphonious name than the contrived "Accentor". So, in some ways Dunnock does exactly what it says on the tin. But we can do better than that. What about Dusty Lurker. Or Drab-coated Da...