NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

I have touched upon my hearing loss previously in ND&B posts, but since then there has been developments. It must have been back in that strangely blame-free pre-Covid year of 2019 that I first noticed that my ears were not fully functioning. On a mid-summer walk through a meadow with my eldest daughter, she commented on the noise that the 'grasshoppers' were making. I stood still and listened. I couldn't hear a single one. This was soon followed by my failure to pick up the screams from a high flying flock of Swifts; the realisation that migrant Tree Pipits had not really become exceedingly rare but was down to the fact that I couldn't hear them call; and that most evocative of autumn night noises, calling Redwings, were out of my aural reach (unless they were very close). The final straw that broke this birder's back was last winter, standing with another birder on Ranmore Common, he picking up and announcing incoming Hawfinches whilst I stood there in a silen...

It has been 10 months since I last posted, a post which I suggested might be the last made on 'North Downs & Beyond' - I have never known when best to stop... How are you? What have you been up to? Me? Well, when I left you I was still knee-deep in Hawfinches along the Surrey North Downs. Mickleham Downs was the epi-centre of the action, with several counts of 300-400 being made. These most charismatic of finches were still to be found well into April, although I couldn't claim to have found any breeding pairs. Having said that, there was plenty of courtship behaviour to be witnessed earlier in the spring, with the photograph above showing a female (left-hand lower bird) accepting a tree bud that the male, neck outstretched, had tenderly offered her. This took place on 18th February 2025 and I was most privileged to have witnessed it, let alone caught it on camera. The Mickleham - Box Hill - Colley Hill area was also excellent for Goshawk (below), with several pairs bei...

Early March. Sometimes, out of the storm clouds comes sunshine, out of the murk, clarity. Dawn at Gorey, on the Channel Island of Jersey was bright but misty. The rising sun soon burnt off the mist to reveal a morning of rare brilliance. The light was ethereal, liquid, slightly hazy. A deep azure-blue upper sky became pearly white towards the horizon. The sea had been tamed, a benign swell softly lapping against the honeyed shingle. The houses, that rose steeply from the beach, dazzling white and with unblemished grey-tiled roofs, were as a film set. Palm trees competed with the riotous flower beds for my attention, with even Agapanthus coming into bloom. In the near distance Gorey Castle rose majestically from its rocky base, all-seeing over the centuries. It was all calm, all peaceful and a strange prelude to visiting my younger sister for the last time. She had been admitted to a hospice a few days earlier, a long illness finally overcoming her. I had visited her the previous evenin...

My birding throughout February 2025 had more than a passing resemblance to my birding during February 2018 - both of these February's being dominated by mud and Hawfinches. For those unaware, the winter of 2017-18 - and particularly the months of February and March 2018 - was witness to an unprecedented irruption of Hawfinches from the continent (their origins being way, way eastwards most probably). I spent an unhealthy amount of time tracking them down across 'my' section of the Surrey North Downs and have written about that unforgettable period elsewhere (there is a tab somewhere up above where you can access that). I never thought that I would be able to witness its like again. I was to be proved semi-wrong... There had been hints at it being a decent Hawfinch winter already - I had recorded 150 at Ashurst Roughs last month but subsequent searches had not replicated those numbers, although counts of 20-30 were easily made at Dorking Wood over towards Ranmore, a tidy num...

It was the 18th-century French philosopher Voltaire who said that you must "cultivate your own garden" - in other words, if you conduct your life in a nurturing and productive way, and be able to ignore how others are looking after theirs, then you will be playing your part in trying to make the world a happier and more fulfilling place. I am increasingly trying to follow this ethos in the way that I conduct my natural history study. If I can try and act responsibly in the light of climate change then, even though my small efforts will make not a halfpenny of difference on their own, if everybody else followed suit then my actions would be part of a greater good - so, the car increasingly stays at home; I walk as much as I can; local birding is the number one choice; importance is attached to the sharing of my results as a way to encourage others to do likewise. I could do so much more to 'cultivate my garden' - we are a three car family; I still eat meat and dairy; I...

My plans were thrown into disarray on September 30th - I had hoped to stay on at Dungeness Bird Observatory well into mid-October, but a staff member fell ill with a nasty bout of Covid, so I thought it best to return home. As much as it was disappointing to miss out on more 'shingle time' it at least gave me the chance to do a bit of Uber-patch vis-migging, something that I am quite partial to. So, Colley Hill beckoned on October 3rd which happily coincided with a flock of seven Ring Ouzels that were inadvertently flushed from scarp-top scrub, with one female/imm staying behind to allow close, if partially hidden, observation. The nearby farm fields at Mogador were full of brassica, enticing at least 110 Skylark to linger within the crop. I returned to Colley Hill the following day ( 4th ) which was blessed with a mad 30-minute spell which saw two Great White Egret fly north, a Woodlark alight on the open sward before heading west and a single Hawfinch fly right past my head -...

Yesterday I met up with Joe Hobden on a cloudy and cool Bank Holiday Monday morning. The main aim of the outing was to check on the large numbers of Bird's-nest Orchids that can be found on the southern slope of Mickleham Downs, between White Hill Car Park and Headley Warren. Joe is on a bit of an orchid odyssey at the moment and I needed little persuasion to join him in his infectious enthusiasm. The slope along the 1km length of our search is steep, with little in the way of clearings amongst the - at times - dense woodland of Yew, Beech, Ash (dying back), various conifers and Box. Yes, the Box here, in its natural environment, takes on the guise of tree rather than ornamental hedge. We estimated that, at a minimum, 5,500+ spikes of Bird's-nest Orchid were located. The majority of them (c5,000) were found on the steepest of the slopes above Cockshott Cottage, in an area that could have taken up no more room than a couple of full-sized football pitches. Unlike previous years w...

Five years ago, to this very day, I was knee-deep in Hawfinches, scouring the wooded valleys of the Surrey North Downs and enjoying numbers that had never been recorded before in the UK. I doubted that such experiences would be repeated again in my lifetime, and although this has been the case so far, events of the past week has questioned such an assumption. It started on March 5th, when Sussex-birder Mark Mallalieu found at least 70 Hawfinches at Fairmile Bottom near Arundel (in West Sussex). He wondered whether the Surrey sites that had hosted good numbers during the 2017-18 eruption might be worth checking. I took the hint! On March 10th I spent the afternoon on Headley Heath, taking a slight detour to check a small part of Bramblehall Wood. Apart from a single bird at Headley Warren, plus three over the heath,  I had to wait until 15.30hrs when a flock of 33 arrived from the south (Box Hill) and flew along the line of the western valley until veering off westwards towards High...

  This morning I was out of the house before dawn, and was surprised to see a number of moths flying in the car headlights as I drove along the wooded lanes at Headley - maybe I shouldn’t have been, as the temperature had turned remarkably mild. My arrival at the ribaldry-named Dick Fock’s Common coincided with daylight attempting to break through a low, stubborn cloud. A good couple of hours were spent walking the footpaths, venturing out into Effingham Forest, spending as much time watching my footing on the slippery muddy paths as I did any birds. It was quiet, with three Hawfinches being the highlight. Onto Ranmore Common, where I criss-crossed the area, up and down the wooded slopes, for a good three hours in total. As to be expected in winter woodland, the birding came in helpings of ‘feast’ and ‘famine’, with seven Hawfinches (a flock of five and two singles, one pictured below) and at least 55 Brambling (above). A number of tit flocks were working their way through the dead...

I make no secret of the fact that I love Hawfinches. It pleases me to have these lovely birds as a fairly regular species within the local area, but, typical of that species, they can sometimes go missing for months on end. It is with great pleasure that, over the past week, I have been able to watch them once again, with a minimum of 11 birds (possibly as many as 16) having been seen over the past week in the western valleys of Headley Heath, and up on the adjoining wooded slope at High Ashurst.  I position myself overlooking the valleys on their eastern flank, which gives me good views across the tree lines. Both my sessions here have been from 13.30hrs until dusk. The earliest that a Hawfinch has appeared is 14.00hrs, and the latest 15.42hrs. The busiest time seems to be around 15.00hrs. Views are usually of birds flying along the distant tree line, or circling the valleys. A couple of times birds have alighted and given reasonable scope views. Twice a flock of five has been rec...

Early November has become special to me. It may well be autumn past its birding best, but there are plenty of opportunities to seek and find, plus experiences to be had that mix the ornithological with the spiritual - something that other times of the year just cannot replicate. Yesterday afternoon found me sitting on the top of a valley at Headley Heath. My views were directly westward, looking straight at the setting sun, a yellow ball ladling out a watery golden light, its weak warmth just winning over the still chillness of a calm day. As I peeled off a couple of layers and luxuriated  - even bathed - in this November ‘heat', I couldn’t help but feel very pleased with things. For the next few hours, all things Covid, Brexit and Trump were banished, and my quest to count birds coming into roost was in the ascendency.  My vantage point allowed me to see across two steep-sided valleys, lightly wooded on their sides but clear at both their bases and tops. Anything that flew ov...

This afternoon I attended the Surrey Botanical Society AGM at Box Hill Village Hall. This was sitting in a tree outside:

My top 10 natural history events of the last five years has reached its conclusion... 1. The Hawfinch irruption in Surrey, 2017-18 It had to be, didn't it - you do not get to witness many unprecedented ornithological events in a lifetime. The Hawfinch irruption of 2017-18 was truly remarkable. The first suggestion that 'something was going on' started in early October, when larger than usual numbers of this big-billed finch were being recorded across the (mainly) southern part of England. This in itself would have been enough to rewrite the perceived status of migrant Hawfinches, but it didn't stop there. Many stopped off to winter, and here I was very lucky indeed. Firstly, I had the time. Secondly, I had the bit between my teeth. And thirdly I lived right in the thick of it, as the largest Hawfinch gatherings ever recorded in Britain decided to haunt the yew-clad slopes of the North Downs in 'my' part of Surrey. I spent a great deal of January, Febr...

On the edge of Ranmore Common, at the very bottom of Denbigh's Hillside, you will find this charming wooden carving. It depicts the life cycle of the rare Adonis Blue butterfly, a species that can be readily found on the chalky slopes above. It was created by local artist Iain Hamilton Crafer, from a two tonne piece of felled oak. Below is a detail from the sculpture of an ant tending a caterpillar. On chalk downland it is usually the Red Ant that 'looks after' the caterpillar, offering it protection from predators in return for a fix of honeydew that is secreted by the larvae. If you would like to see the butterfly for real - and not just a giant wooden facsimile - go along on a warm day in May when the first brood should be on the wing. The food plant of the caterpillar is Horseshoe Vetch, so you will often see the adult butterflies flying around this flower which is easily found across the open grassland. It was a good day to be out. Despite a bit of a breez...

A strange day. I was out birding for most of it and for the majority of the time struggled to see very much at all - few thrushes, paltry numbers of finches, same old, same old. The woodland did have more song than of late, in particular Great and Marsh Tits, but it was hardly a cacophony. But having said that, there were some great moments... Best of all was a happy reconnection with my favourite bird, the Hawfinch. A flock of eight were being faithful to the treetops that run along the road between Headley Heath and High Ashurst. I last saw them moving towards Box Hill; a noisy Raven was hanging around the fields close to Nohome Farm on Walton Downs; and last but by no means least, two Barn Owls were hunting together over the fields of Canons Farm. One even landed on a fence post just 25m away from me. My fumbled attempt to take a photograph would have made the final cut of any Laurel and Hardy film. Botanical infusion came courtesy of a fair amount of Grey Field Speedwell (ab...

Polesden Lacey was visited this afternoon, and Katrina and I strolled along the 'upper' woodland path that snaked eastwards, coming back along the valley bottom via one of the tracks that meanders through the sheep pasture. It was eerily quiet, save for the odd barking dog or shout from a child making the most of the last days of the Christmas school holidays. Bird wise it was almost a no-show, save for the 50+ Chaffinches that were spooked by a couple of walkers as they marched through a carpet of beech mast. And I was looking, believe me, I was looking. Up along the tree tops. Across the floor of the beech woodland. Scanning the empty skies. And listening intently for any tell tale 'siip' or 'tick'. I was, to be truthful, chasing ghosts. Remembering what was here a year ago. Wanting to desperately relive those heady days, although I knew at the time that such events were once in a lifetime occurrences. We are, of course, talking Hawfinch. It might soun...