NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

To be able to walk to a patch, and expect the odd surprise throughout the year, is a real pleasure. My continued bashing of Priest Hill has carried on over the weekend, but little is being grounded and the weather seems stuck in this coolish westerly airflow - my hopes of Pied Flycatchers and Common Redstarts (not to mention Wrynecks and Red-backed Shrikes) have been put on hold. The sole modest jewel in the ornithological crown was a single Lesser Whitethroat this afternoon, and that just about sums up how poor it has been. Quality may be missing, but as far as my 'friendly' competition with Thorncombe Street goes, quantity is not. I am starting to feel a little bit embarrassed by the number of gulls that are passing over Priest Hill at the moment, as they just do not seem to do so at Thorncombe - another 500+ today, and, quite a rarity for PH, many rested for a while on the playing fields. My chance to string winkle out a Yellow-legged Gull was not taken though. My only co...

The Priest Hill v Thorncombe Street challenge is already throwing up some interesting 'compare and contrast' dynamics. Take gulls for instance. They are a numerous and regular feature of the skies above the greater Banstead area, almost throughout the year. At nearby Canons Farm, the day total for Herring Gulls hot-winging it between landfill and reservoir runs easily into the high hundreds (aside from the mid-summer months). I suspect that the Priest Hill day total will not reach these heights, but will still be a large component of the avian biomass (I recorded 170 today). Contrast this with Thorncombe Street, where Ed's grand total this morning was one single bird - he says that he doesn't get decent large gull numbers till mid-winter. Maybe my (relative) proximity to the London Reservoir roost sites and the feeding stations at landfill sites is the reason behind this difference. And I may need this gull advantage, as his patch seems to get much larger Woodpigeon and...

Priest Hill - the eastern end of Bunting Field There seems to be a bit of a renaissance in patch watching across the county of Surrey, with several birders (and sites) being added to the mix over the past couple of years, and the awakening of other patches that have been lying dormant. It all makes for a healthy, vibrant scene. Not all of these places are particularly birdy, with 'dry' sites increasingly being worked, these normally occurring on 'higher ground'. What they lack in water (and the attendant wildfowl and waders) they compensate for in many other ways. One site that is on a bit of a roll is Thorncombe Street , being heavily (and successfully) covered by Ed Stubbs. Click on the link to find out more. He has, so far in 2017, recorded two Cattle Egrets, a Common Rosefinch and sizeable flocks of Black-tailed Godwit and Whimbrel - plus a lot more besides. Putting the rest of us to shame, he is... Ed and I are both fascinated by the migration that we witness...