NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Back in March, Ed Stubbs announced the launch of a Surrey-based bird race, to take part on May 7th. The rules were simple: between 00.00hrs - 18.00hrs observers were asked to record as many species as possible within a 5km radius of a nominated point. The use of 'green' transport - foot or bike - was encouraged. Solo birders or gathered teams were both welcome. I was, of course, in! So, where would my nominated point be? The most obvious starting place would be my home in Banstead. I would then be able to carry out the whole day 'on foot'. I started to look at a route, which would, by necessity, have to take in the very few limited water bodies within that area. There was a downside - there would be plenty of walking through areas that would not, in all honesty, hold much. There was also a wish to be spending the day in an area that might hold a few surprises, be they untrodden footpaths, unvisited tracts of land and stunning scenery - in the end I plumped for Colley Hi...

Yesterday I was walking back home from Epsom Town centre when I passed a gateway - a gateway that I have walked on by over the years - and noticed that the substantial field on the other side was being cut, the grass neatly piled and baled. My birding brain kicked in with "I bet there will be a Wheatear or two on top of those bales before the day is out" and I found myself back on site later that evening - no Wheatear, but at least six Common Buzzards were gathered, no doubt taking advantage of the recently cut grass to forage for food. I returned early this afternoon, and, joy of joys, two Wheatears were on show, along with seven Common Buzzards and a Red Kite. And there was more, for I went back two hours later and the Wheatears had been joined by three Whinchats! Now, this field is largely unbirdable, with private housing, a railway station and a mature Hawthorn hedgerow keeping observations down to the previously mentioned gateway - or so I thought. I have found a couple ...

Let's cut to the chase - locally, the birding has been poor. I'm not moaning - OK, I am a bit - but for all of the hours spent out in the field, the rewards have been slow and few. I've already alluded to a dearth of birds, with hardly any warbler, finch or tit flocks. There have been times when, after 10-15 minutes, I realise I haven't seen or heard a passerine. Really. Luchtime today found me at Canons Farm. I was getting into that all-to familiar state, of wondering where all the birds had gone, of starting to despair with how things were turning out - I was on the verge of writing my own blues song, something along the lines of 'The lonesome Canons Farm birding lament', when up popped a Whinchat. Ah, something, at least something. Then another. Now three. Five. I scanned back and forth across the field of long grass and dead hogweed. Each time another Whinchat was on show. They were mobile, all keeping to the same field, but frequently dropping down out of s...

It's been a quiet couple of weeks locally. Canons Farm, Walton and Epsom Downs, Priest Hill and Headley Heath have all been visited. Passage migrants were thin on the ground and the number of warblers much depressed - I do wonder if the breeding season has been poor, and this is why I am not seeing (or hearing) many locally-bred young birds. Bucking the trend, however, was a count of 60+ Chiffchaffs at Headley last Wednesday. This morning's wander across the farmland at Mogador was better - straw bales that had been left in a recently harvested field were acting as convenient perches for three Whinchats and two Wheatears. I stood and watched for awhile. I will never tire of chats.

Over the past couple of days, fellow north-Surrey birders have been returning some tidy counts of Stonechats. Now, I love Stonechats, so today was turned into a 'Stonechat Sweep Day' where all of my most chatty patches were visited - all being within five miles from home. It turned out rather well. Fist up was the grandly named Mogador , open farmland/pasture with ribbons of hedgerow and several scrubby corners -  Stonechat score: 7 (4 males). Next up was Canons Farm , always a favourite with our chat friends, and so it proved again -  Stonechat score:  7   (3 males). Epsom Downs played hard to get, with the most  chat-tastic areas disappointingly devoid of them, but when I gave them all another search they came out to play -  Stonechat score:  5   (2 males). The last stop was Priest Hill , scrubby ex-football pitches and this site stole the show, with guest appearances as well -  Stonechat score:  11   (3 males) + 4  Whincha...

I arrived at the Washington 'South Downs Way' car park at 06.30hrs, immediately heading up the hill towards Chanctonbury Ring. This section of the Sussex hills are well served with footpaths which criss-cross the open farmland. This is big sky country, blessed of set-aside fields, hedgerows, copses and, most importantly, birds. Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps were already calling and an early Common Redstart and Spotted Flycatcher boded well for the day ahead. Chanctonbury Ring the site of a prehistoric hill-fort (the grove of trees is an 18th-century folly). Both times that I've birded here there has been little on offer within the 'ring', all the action taking place along the fence-line and northern slope between the dew-pond and 400m east of the grove, (this eastern end characterised by a graveyard of ash die-back victims). The morning visit was bright enough, with Whinchat, Wheatear and plenty of commoner warblers, but my return visit (at about 15.30hrs) was ...

This morning saw a four-hour session at Priest Hill. The most notable event was that I actually heard a calling Tree Pipit as it flew SW - it must have been low and close. Not much else on the move though, a handful of Meadow Pipits and single Yellow and Grey Wagtail. At least four Whinchats were present, a couple which are not 'hangers-ons', as they exhibited wider and brighter supercillia than those seen over the past couple of weeks.

Whinchats. One of my favourite birds. Luckily for me they are a frequent passage migrant on the neighbouring downland. This afternoon a minimum of five were found at Priest Hill, with at least two of them being 'new' individuals. I would love to know the true numbers passing through. Counts from here of five (24th), three (27th) and five (today) could, purely on paper, be taken as five birds hanging around or 13 different individuals. Fortunately some of these birds have been quite striking - one exhibited a bright orange upper breast (only seen on 24th), while new in today was a grey-plumaged bird plus another that had a strongly spangled mantle. So, a minimum of seven.

A day's birding (on and off) all on foot from home. Was it worth it? Well yes, it had its moments... First off was a couple of hours vis-migging from Nork Park. This was the first such session and will most probably be the last. Until you actually try these things for real, the problems are not always apparent. As a site it has a great view, but the best position is alongside a noisy A road. I have enough of a problem picking up the calls of distant Tree Pipits and Redwings as it is, so the backdrop of vehicle noise will not be helpful. The park is also home to hundreds of dog-walkers and their canine companions. I was met with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity and felt quite uncomfortable. If the park returned Spurn-like numbers of migrants I would roll with it, but this is obviously not the case. I returned home and sat in the garden, which was almost silent in comparison. My close-to-home skywatches will be a lot closer to home than I envisaged. This afternoon I dodged...

These bridge cameras are remarkable bits of kit. They will never compete with the big lenses in getting those award winning photographs, but as a bit of visual back-up they are great. I was at a very dull and murky Canons Farm this afternoon and saw a blob at the top of a dead tree, lifted my binoculars and could see that it was a Great Spotted Woodpecker. As a bit of an experiment, I took a picture of the scene with no magnification whatsoever, then a maximum x260 shot from the same spot, focused on the woodpecker. These are the results: Pink circle where the woodpecker was perched. Hand held on a dull old afternoon, digital x260. Not award winning, but if it had been a Middle Spot, then job done! Once you start taking images with digital zoom settings then you are getting a load of 'made-up' pixels into the bargain, but it is still helpful in clinching identifications, being able to age or sex a bird etc. Just don't hope to win any awards for the quality of s...

This morning, while waiting for a big hirundine/pipit day, and daydreaming about big thrush days to come, I spent some time on the shores of the northern lake at Beddington SF, watching a group of four Whinchat, a Stonechat and a female Common Redstart. Another Whinchat was found on the Beddington park border. Not a lot was passing overhead although five Sand Martin and two Common Swift were noteworthy.

There was a good tweet posted on Twitter yesterday, basically suggesting that photographs of birds placed in their habitat are far more pleasing than a close-up shot of the species. I couldn't agree more! Now, it could be that I agree with this sentiment because it is easier for me to obtain decent 'bird/habitat' images with a bridge camera (as with the migrant Whinchat shown above) than it is to get feather-by-feather detail  - however, there is something undeniably satisfying with a picture where the bird is just a part of the composition. It somehow breathes. By the way, have you noticed how quite a few people are now referring to the taking of a photograph as a 'capture' and using it in verb form too? Not to keen on that myself.

This afternoon's visit to Canons Farm was made with birds firmly in mind. We are now into late August, the time for chats, warblers and hirundines to build in numbers as they pass through on their way southwards. Southern coastal watch-points are doing OK as it goes, and as much as the inland birder does not set their sights as high as 'our friends by the sea', it is fair enough for us to hope for a few ornithological crumbs to come our way. After a couple of hours of tramping around the patch, I was deflated. The hedgerows and copses were empty. No calling warblers and no proudly perched chats. To save the day I needed to take off my ornithological hat and replace it with my botanical one. The new destination was the steep field to the east of Fames Rough, where a rather fine colony of Devil's-bit Scabious can be found. Was it having a good year? Oh yes! Tens of thousands of flowerhead were blooming - and this is a scarce plant locally. Take a look for yourself: ...

Northern Wheatear, Priest Hill, August What can I say about my birding autumn other than it was very hard work. The Priest Hill experiment carried on with almost daily visits between late July and the end of September, but then fizzled out owing to my enthusiasm being drained by the paucity of migrants - two fly over Little Egrets, two Tree Pipits, and single Wheatear and Whinchat were poor return for such effort. No Yellow Wagtails, few warblers, it really was a struggle. Mid-September saw me return to Canons Farm and be instantly rewarded with good numbers of chats, plus both Pied and Spotted Flycatchers. And then there was an unforgettable day in which 10,000 mixed hirundines streamed through - maybe the old place was trying to tell me something... Spotted Flycatcher, Canons Farm, September Whinchat, Canons Farm, September I even partook in a most uncharacteristic ornithological act, that of twitching a bird at Beddington! There were mock faintings from the birders pre...

Chats... you just can't get enough of them, can you - at least I can't. I spent a good hour standing by a field edge at Canons Farm watching a party of 4 Stonechat and a Whinchat as they flitted and sallied around the hedgerows, fences and vegetation in the field. A couple of them came close enough for a few decent images to be obtained. Back at home, the garden MV came up trumps with a Delicate, a migrant moth that has been turning up on the south coast in good numbers. It also happens to be the 400th species of macro that I've recorded here.

An afternoon visit to Canons Farm was accompanied by a steady heavy drizzle. There seemed to have been a clear out of the migrants that have been on show over the past couple of days, but these had been replaced by a flock of five Whinchats, which popped up in the Reeds Rest Cottage barns area, and, even better, a vocal Pied Flycatcher that flitted around the Ash and Oak canopy in Lunch Wood. After just a minute the bird stopped calling, faded into the vegetation and was not seen again.

Another brief foray to Canons Farm, mainly to visit a fallen tree in Owl Meadow that was acting as an ornithological magnet - my first scan with the binoculars revealed single Common Redstart, Whinchat (below) and Spotted Flycatcher (above) - good going for a dry inland site. There was a smattering of migrants nearby, including 3 Wheatear, 2 Willow Warbler and a Lesser Whitethroat. After several days of feeling under the weather I seem to have turned a corner - maybe, with my powers restored, that lurking rarity is about to be unearthed...

February 1st. A chilly, grey and drizzly day outside. My SAD (seasonal affective disorder) credentials are kicking in - depressed, lethargic, overeating, irritable, feeling down and unsociable. The NHS website tries to be helpful and suggests these 10 steps to redemption: Keep Active, Get Outside, Keep Warm, Eat Healthily, See The Light, Take Up A New Hobby, See Friends and Family, Talk It Through, Join a Support Group, Seek Help... some of these do seem a bit drastic. I'm just fed up with the lack of daylight and the weather, I'm not living in Aleppo! I am following most of these suggestions already (if eating an apple directly after finishing a packet of biscuits counts as eating healthily that is). No, winter cannot hurry up enough and turn into spring as far as I'm concerned. Winter does, admittedly, have its own charm and it would take an emotionally bankrupt individual to not take joy from a heavy frost, Redwings and Fieldfares, er... Redwings and Fieldfares... did ...