NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Back in the summer we lost another of the birding family, Barry Banson. Had I been maintaining this blog at the time I would have written about him there and then, so please accept my belated words of celebration of the man, one who was a great influence on me, moulding my natural history interests with the result that it took me to the four corners of Britain in pursuit of wild flowers. I first met Barry while birding at Beddington SF in the mid-1970s. He was, at the time, a schoolmaster at Alleyn's, a public school based in Dulwich. I think it is fair to say that the schoolmaster never fully left Barry, who did not suffer fools gladly and treated many people as if they were a pupil in one of his classes. regardless of their age or station in life. Having said that, once you got beyond that veneer of authority he was an utterly charming and interesting person to spend time with, a man of many interests, with natural history and sport at the top of a long list. In those early days ...

I have just spent a most enjoyable and informative hour watching 'Bees, Butterflies and Blooms' on BBC2, presented by Sarah Raven. The aim of the programme (and series) was/is to highlight the plight of Britain's wild flowers - not only the fact that their decline is one that is an aesthetic loss to us, but more importantly the worry that our insect population are in freefall and that this in turn reduces the number of pollinators of many of our important crops. It was a joy to see flower-filled meadows and actually have a botanist, on prime-time television, showing off the delights that such places harbour. I was immediately reminded to plug Sarah's latest book (pictured left). You could at first mistake it as nothing but a coffee-table book, but you would be wrong. Inside you will find stunning photography, particularly the habitat spread shots that will leave you looking deep into them for several minutes before being enticed away to read the i...