NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

The Dungeness locals found a Temminck's Stint on ARC yesterday morning, and being a part of the RSPB reserve they dutifully phoned in the sighting to the Visitor Centre. The conversation went something like this... Mark: "There's a Temminck's Stint on ARC, viewable from the Hanson Hide" VC staffer: (relaying the information to others in the room) "Mark's got a Ten Inch Stint!" It has been suggested that she had other things on her mind at the time... It reminded me of something that happened twenty years ago at Holmethorpe Sand Pits. I was wandering the pits one morning only to be accosted by a highly agitated band of birders who had hot-footed it from Beddington Sewage Farm, demanding to know if I had "seen it". What? I asked. "The Great Snipe" came the reply. I hadn't heard about it, and we were all non-plussed when it transpired that I had been with the supposed finder of the bird all morning, who had left for home ...

I've titled this post 'Rant #9' but it could, in all honesty, be the hundreth rant that I've put you poor readers through.This isn't going to be a post about the Great Snipe-murdering cat of Spurn * either. This lunchtime I wandered into WH Smith and happened across a whole shelf of books on display, all attributable to the same BBC programme - Top Gear.. Most of them were written by Jeremy Clarkson (variations of a theme, mainly slagging off anything that isn't Jeremy Clarkson), with the odd tome from Richard 'The Hamster' Hammond (he isn't a real hamster) and James May. There was also a Christmas annual (it is, after all, September). The cover depicted these three men, all leering out at me with mock expressions upon their fizzogs. The more I looked the more I wanted to destroy it. But why? Jeremy Clarkson It isn't the fact that he tries to squeeze into 32-inch waist jeans when he is clearly in need of a 38. It isn't so much his mop ...