NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

At the moment my birding time is not, in my opinion, being fairly rewarded, beyond that of being able to see the totally expected. In an ideal world that wouldn't matter, as it should be enough just to be out in the open and accept whatever comes along. However, currently that doesn't work for the ‘spoilt brat’ within me, and I am starting to think that the birding Gods are not on my side. So I plod on, waiting for that eureka moment that is surely getting closer!  Almost an all-dayer today, split between Epsom Downs and Canons Farm, both sites unrewarding. With a few Mediterranean Gulls being picked up across the county I was on high alert, but few 'smaller' gulls were on show. Apart from a group of Herring Gulls on the race course, most were high and overhead. It is always worth checking anything on the deck here, but nothing warranted a second look. The picture above has, in the foreground, one of the hummocky-strips that contours the race course on the southern flan...

Yes, it's time to dig up that old chestnut once again, JUST WHERE IS SURREY? For some of you it's just that sleepy county south of London where stockbrokers live, the National Trust has an exceedingly high level of membership and millions of cock-a-poos run freely alongside Labrador-doodles. All true, but it is also home to several hundred birders who have an identity crisis, and that is where on earth is the county boundary? From time to time social media reveals a spasm of collective confusion, roughly along the lines of why we should/shouldn't accept Staines Reservoir as part of birding Surrey. A SHORT HISTORY LESSON... Back in the depths of time Surrey was created, its lands running north to the southern bank of the Thames. In 1852 a geographical division of the United Kingdom was devised that resulted in clear divisions of the vice-counties, also called the Watsonian vice-counties. In 1889 the county of London was created and the boroughs of Wandsworth, Lambe...

I've been keeping my head down of late. In fact, I've been back in the land of the earning, plying my trade as a freelance designer, working for a Holborn-based publisher. This has necessitated my becoming a commuter - and boy, is that an eye-opener... I've always lived around the edge of London, rarely venturing into it. But age has seen my feelings towards our capital city become far more positive. I love the architecture, the theatres, the galleries, the museums and the pubs. Its wildlife has never really registered with me, so I've always looked upon those birders that work it with a mixture of awe and bewilderment. I follow one particular exponent - Des McKenzie - on Twitter, and feel that all of his sightings are that much more hard-won and worthy than my own. He even wanders the 'pavements of gold' searching for exotic species of tree. True dedication. Last Saturday we visited our eldest daughter Rebecca who currently lives in Bromley-by-Bow, and walk...

The London Natural History Society, that was formed in 1545 to enable King Henry VIII to keep tabs on his moth and beetle list, has always maintained the same recording area, that of all places within a twenty mile radius of St. Paul's Cathedral. This was pretty clever of those 16th century naturalists as construction of the cathedral was not started until 1675... Recently there have been a number of high profile birds that have had the bloody nerve of appearing in places that may be, or may not be, within the LNHS recording area. The most famous is the singing Savi's Warbler at Amwell Gravel Pits, which decided to confuse all comers by taking up position in a bush that stradled the invisible recording area boundary. Confusion reigned. I can exclusively reveal, via a source close to the LNHS hierarchy, that to stop such confusion in the future the society are going to ammend the recording area into one that is perfectly easy to see. As from January 1st 2012, and in celebration ...