NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

In all honesty it started three autumns ago. My fellow birders were picking up Tree Pipit calls and I was failing to do so. This was unusual, as I had quite a good ear and had never had any trouble picking Tree Pipits up before. I began to get a little concerned when, whilst standing next to somebody who picked up a couple of birds calling overhead in quick succession, I hadn’t heard a thing. Last autumn I partook in a lot of vismigging and was surprised that the Redwing flocks were not calling as they passed through. I was even more surprised when they were not calling at night, even at times when others were reporting heavy nocturnal passage with much calling being heard. I wondered why the skies above my house remained silent, but deep down my suspicions were being aroused. So far this year I have seen plenty of Swifts, enjoying their flocks racing overhead in numbers that have been up on recent years. Funny thing is, none of them have been calling... This afternoon we visited...

My family keep on reminding me that I've done very well to get to my mid-50s before having the need for reading glasses. It first became apparent that things were not as they had always been whilst examining the egg-trays in the moth trap. My attempts to focus on the smaller moths was at first a minor irritant and then something that needed addressing. This did not, however, get in the way of birding - although having never possessed the pin-point visual acuity of an Alfrey or Browne (both Beddington boys), I can still function perfectly well. Having said that, a recent trend is for me to lose butterflies and moths in flight against a backdrop in vegetation. Not all the time, but time enough to make it a regular event. It is often said that a birder knows when their hearing is going when they lose the ability to pick up the high-pitched calls of crests and the reeling song of a Grasshopper Warbler. I know that I can still do both of them, with a Gropper this Spring being quite a ...