NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

The vegetation in the region of Banstead (Surrey) can best be summed up by using the following adjectives - crisped, wilted, stressed, exhausted; and the same exercise for flowers throws up spent, sparse, finished and missing. The 'fifth' heatwave across our country has done in a lot of the greenery (have you seen the colour of grass recently?) and dried out the rest to a point where a stray spark can ignite a major event. This seems to be the first year in which many people have finally climbed down off of the 'climate fence' and have started to take the whole subject more seriously. Many will climb back up on to it if we get through the remainder of the summer without further drama, especially if we have a wet autumn. Worrying times. The hot weather has been responsible for a large number of migrant insects to appear in the UK in numbers that were previously the stuff of fantasy. A few sites have clocked up 500-1,000+ Small Mottled Willows in a single night and - reme...

It goes with the territory. If you are an advocate and an exponent of 'low-carbon' birding, of being green and of leaving the car in the driveway and walking (or taking public transport) to your places of birding, then it is prudent to 'walk-the-walk' and not just 'talk-the-talk'. It helps if you live by the coast, or at least close to a large water-body - your doorstep experience will be so much more rewarding than if you live, let's just say, on the edge of dry Surrey chalk downland. It is a fault of mine to embrace a cause and then become a cheerleader for it, rather than quietly support it. Thus, I bang on about the delights to be found in birdwatching my immediate area - and, believe me, there can be delights. But, in 2023, I am finding these delights to be hard to come by. It can appear - and it is -  a 'first-world' problem: that of bleating on about how poor the local birding is. When compared to what could be wrong in life it is of little co...