NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Back in the late 1970s I sometimes teamed up with Ian Brown, a birder from the Woking area, who had a passion for Watford Football Club. Back then they were a Fourth Division team (that's League Two in today's money), but they were on an upwards curve, being managed by a bright young man called Graham Taylor (who was to become England boss - "Do I not like that!") We went on many birding trips together (sometimes in the company of Charlie Daly and Ian McVeigh) which normally involved a weekend away, dossing in the car or staying in a Youth Hostel, to places as diverse as The New Forest, mid-Wales, the Suffolk Coast and Breckland. But, during the winter of 1978, Ian somehow managed to persuade us to add on the attendance of a Watford match to our birding itinerary... 7 January 1978 West Ham 1 Watford 0 (FA Cup third round) 36, 475 On arrival in the east end of London, we ensured that Ian's Watford car sticker was removed from the car windscreen and walked to...

Number 5 - 9 April 1977 - W********** at Hastings I've gone on about this at some length before, so if you don't want a second (or third) helping then you'll have to wait until Number 4 is revealed. But if you do, or don't know what w********** stands for, then please click here.

This morning, on the Rare Birds of Britain and Ireland Facebook group, Simon Smethurst pointed out  that, although certain species can become our bogey birds (with frequent dips), there are others that we cannot but help connecting with. He has seen three different Green Herons in the UK. What rare multiples do others have, he asked? The response was revealing: Multiple American Robins, Yellow-browed Buntings, Mourning Doves, Scop's Owls, Alder Flycatchers, American Redstarts, Yellow-billed Cuckoos, Thick-billed Warblers, Tengmalm's Owls (that's just being greedy, Martin Gray!) and - I had to mention them again - my two WALLCREEPERS... I then posed the question, if these birds could be traded like football cards and stickers, what would I be offered for my spare Wallcreeper? The best offer came from Martin Goodey, who upped his initial offer of a spare Scarlet Tanager to also include a Cliff Swallow and a Northern Waterthrush. I'd be tempted! How did he know I needed...

Any regular visitor to this blog will know that every now an again I allude to the fact that I have seen not one, but two Wallcreepers in the UK. In lieu of 'owt else to waffle on about at the moment, I wanted to gloat about share in the glory of the first one... April 9 1977 Dungeness, Kent The day had begun with snow showers and a north-easterly wind. I was staying at the bird observatory and by midday, together with four other birders, was sitting in the patch sea-watch hide. Little was moving and after half an hour we had started to lose interest. The noise of somebody running across the shingle towards the hide caught our attention before the firm knocking on the hide door. It was local birder, Mick Sinden. "I don't know how true this is, but there are rumours of a Wallcreeper on the cliffs at Ecclesbourne Glen ". This was, apparently, close to the village of Fairlight (just over the border and into East Sussex), just before you reach the town of Hastings....