NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

I haven't had a moan for a while, so here goes... I've noticed a certain word cropping up on natural history Facebook groups and in plenty of tweets. It is a word used to describe an insect - normally a small insect, and usually one that has not been identified. And that word is CRITTER. FFS - critter. A word that has come from the folksy, whimsical world of Americana. You can imagine a good ole boy on his rocking chair, sitting out on the verandah in Texas, or Georgia, or Alabama (you pick), swatting those 'pesky critters' as he chews tobacco and screams "Yee-ha!" I've most probably broken several rules on racial stereotyping there, but you get my drift. What next? Spiders referred to as "Lil' fellas"? Wasps as "stripy dudes"? To quote one Jim Royle, "Critters my arse..."

Social media. Two little words that have become a way of life for millions. The opium of the masses. A vehicle that allows people to inflict their ordinariness on the rest of the world. Or to impose their superiority upon it. Useful information becomes lost and then drowned in a sea of rubbish. A world dominated by mediocre observations at best, by vacuous waffling in the middle and by poisonous ranting at worst. What has been unleashed is a stream of self-congratulatory drivel, fuelled by egos that demand to be seen, heard and responded to. We are no better than juggling clowns riding monocycles, hogging the spotlight and demanding applause, desperate for laughter and then hunting down comment in the aftermath. If our audience doesn't get it the first time then we will hit them over the head with it for a second, third and fourth time, beating them into submission until somebody - ANYBODY - responds. Doesn't matter that you've never met them and most probably never will,...

The latest addition to my 'Worthy Blog List' comes courtesy of The Hairy Birder, who birds and rings in the Fleetwood and Fylde area - it's good to get a bit of NW England influence, to counter the plethora of blogs that I have gathered from the North East. And now for one of my occasional 'off-piste' posts that have nothing to to with birding, naff all to do with looking at twigs or even glancing at mothy things. It is also a rant. This is about Football... I am a lifelong football fan, brought up by my Father to appreciate the 'Beautiful Game', although his supporting of Stoke City did not rub off on me and I chose to follow Tottenham Hotspur - and before anyone should suggest that I should have supported a more local team, back in 1968 (when I nailed my allegiance to the mighty Spurs), we lived in Hertfordshire and they were the first team that I saw live (versus Stoke, November 2nd, 1-1 draw if you're interested). When we moved south in 1971 I ...

There seems to be an awful lot of self promotion going on in the world of birding at the moment. My twitter feed is full of people boasting about their recent finds, pointing me in the direction of their latest blog posts and imploring me to buy their latest book. I suppose I should be applauding them for using social media to alert a potential audience (or customer base) to the existence of their products or the greatness of their birding prowess, especially if this is how they make a living. But I find it all a bit tiresome. I suppose that the reason why I don't buy into it is because birding to me is a means of escape from that part of the world which is ruled by celebrity and force-fed by a bloated media. To have to wade through exactly that same sort of stuff to find out what's been seen is something that displeases me. But am I guilty of hypocrisy here? After all, didn't I bathe in the small glory of finding the Surrey Hawfinch flock back in March? Am I not keen to ...

I've titled this post 'Rant #9' but it could, in all honesty, be the hundreth rant that I've put you poor readers through.This isn't going to be a post about the Great Snipe-murdering cat of Spurn * either. This lunchtime I wandered into WH Smith and happened across a whole shelf of books on display, all attributable to the same BBC programme - Top Gear.. Most of them were written by Jeremy Clarkson (variations of a theme, mainly slagging off anything that isn't Jeremy Clarkson), with the odd tome from Richard 'The Hamster' Hammond (he isn't a real hamster) and James May. There was also a Christmas annual (it is, after all, September). The cover depicted these three men, all leering out at me with mock expressions upon their fizzogs. The more I looked the more I wanted to destroy it. But why? Jeremy Clarkson It isn't the fact that he tries to squeeze into 32-inch waist jeans when he is clearly in need of a 38. It isn't so much his mop ...

I've noticed across blog-land that if you post something of a serious nature (badger cull, buzzard nest blasting, environmental doom, Turtle Dove massacre or political shenanigans) you will get no comments, or hardly any comments at all. Yet, if you put up a picture of a Robin on a spade, or a butterfly sunning itself, half-a-million Americans will comment "Aw shucks!" So, in an attempt to alienate my stateside visitors, and to be satirical, cop a load of this:

Once upon a time, we went out birdwatching. It would normally be to a local place, where you would bump into other birdwatchers - they weren't called birders then, just birdwatchers. There would be a sense of originality about what we were engaged in as the chances were nobody had reported any sightings from that place for a few days, and if there was something special in the area we would most probably find out about it when we turned up that very day. The birdwatchers that you bumped into would also be a surprise as the chances were you wouldn't know that they were going to be there at the same time as you. Most people carried scuffed-up optics that were not terribly good and not many of us had a scope - however, we were very proud of them and treasured them. If we needed to get closer to a bird to see it better we used stealth and hard-won field craft to creep up on it. If it flew off we tried again. And again. The one or two field guides that were on the market were woefu...

Firstly a rant. I was watching something or other on ITV (featuring people I had to keep asking my daughter as to who they were), when the programme went to an advertisement break. I then heard the following voice over: "Morrisons - proud sponsors of Christmas on ITV" Just take that in a moment. Morrisons the supermarket, believe that they have ownership of the religious festival known as Christmas. Apparently it is their's to embrace in a tacky yuletide cuddle. Whatever next, 'Fresh Air - exclusively yours through the kindness of Nike" or "All the worlds sea water by kind permission of Starbuck's!" It makes me mad... I did see some birds today by the way - one of the Banstead Downs Firecrests couldn't play hide-and-seek terribly well and one of the Sutton peregrines showed up at Quadrant House in the late afternoon gloom. A deep breath - hold it - and now exhale - OHMMMMMMM

I found myself wandering around Kingston-upon-Thames town centre yesterday afternoon. Along with a tide of humanity that seemed hell-bent on spending even more money on such necessary requirements such as DVD boxed-sets, CDs, books and shiny electrical appliances. Recession? Not here, pal... I was there under duress, not in the best of moods, but to salve my increasingly furrowed brow I walked into Waterstone's the 'book' shop. Oh dear. I was met by a display of book titles, all themed "One thousand things to do/see/hear before you die". I picked up the tome dedicated to telling us what music we need to consume before we are carted off to where ever we are destined to end up - I think I know a bit about music - and was singularly unimpressed with most of the choices. I scowled at the other books, suggesting what printed word we need to read, what places we need to visit and I remembered that there are at least two natural history books based around this same, ...