NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

This is the last of the Dungeness retrospectives, that's a promise! I haven't run out of subjects, but like all things, you reach a sell-by date. To end on a downer is not indicative of my times at Dungeness, but this particular episode saw a sea-change in how I approached the shingle kingdom. Dungeness Nov 1992 A Richard’s Pipit has been found on the RSPB reserve. It’s Saturday, so there are plenty of observers around searching for it. The bird is very flighty and settles in a large grassy field. The field is off limits. Sightings of the bird are few and when I appear I do not connect with it. Little is seen until the late afternoon when it appears briefly for a chosen few. The following morning I return to the field early and walk along the footpath on its eastern edge, very slowly, scanning the field intently. When I’m only ten yards from the field’s end I turn back, assuming the bird has gone. At this point another birder joins me, we briefly chat, and he continues w...

After all of the ornithological highs that I've bombarded you with regarding my time spent at Dungeness, time for a few lows... they did exist! Dungeness Jan-Dec 1986 This year has been something of a non-event at Dungeness both ornithologically and socially. I’ve put the time in but little has been on offer – hardly any rarities (with the exception of a Collared Pratincole in June), few falls and it’s hard to look back with any satisfaction over the last 12 months. It’s had its moments – a January day when a teeming mass of gulls on the patch included two Glaucous and an immaculate Iceland; two spring male Ortolan Buntings; confiding autumnal Red-backed Shrike and Wryneck; and a vocal flyover Snow Bunting that somehow captured my imagination and elevated its status beyond its true worth on a sedate November morning, but…there has been a sense of doing things by numbers this year. For example, visiting the pits in January with a role-call of wintering species to ‘tick-off’ t...

Now and again I am told something that makes me sit up and pay attention. It happened last night when I caught a bit of Autumnwatch on the TV.  If I heard correctly, there is concern over the amount of antidepressant molecules getting into our water (via the agency of people prescribed Prozac having to void bladder and bowels). Studies have shown that this can (or is?) having a direct effect on the health of birds. A study on Starlings ( click here for a summary ) has shown that when they were fed on sewage farm-gathered earthworms, because of the levels of antidepressant in the worms, this led to a suppression of appetite and a lowering of sex-drive in the birds. This double whammy could be one of the causes of the slump seen in Starlings since the 1960s. If they are not eating enough during the cold winter nights they are doomed - and if those that survive cannot then be bothered to breed, the population will not be replenished!! My early birding memories (admittedly not going b...

Walton Downs - I've seen Peregrine, Golden Plover and Whinchat from this spot - what chance a shrike in 2015? I started my birding journey in 1974 by walking out of my front door and birding the local green spaces, and it looks as though things are going to come full circle. My plans for 2015 revolve around a concerted effort on my closest sites: Canons Farm; Banstead Woods, Downs and Heath; Park Down and Chipstead Bottom; Walton Downs and Heath; Epsom Downs; and the Ewell complex of Howell Hill, Priest Hill and the river and ponds at Bourne Hall. Although birding will take up a greater part of my time I will not ignore the plants and butterflies - this is a superb area for both. Then, of course, the garden MV will see its 29th consecutive season of operation - there are still moth surprises to be had. I know that the birding will be slow, with the odd burst of excitement, but that will do nicely. My aims and appreciation of such things are different now. Over the next few w...

Dungeness April 1984 A walk out to the Brooks takes a concerted effort. In the first instance you need to drive several miles, via Lydd, and then along a series of pot-holed tracks. Once parked off-road on a steep grassy bank you then have a good mile walk along a raised earth track, 100yards from the sea and running parallel to it. This is wild country. Either side of you is a Ministry of Defence firing range, the army frequently raising red flags to warn you not to even think about wandering out here. The area is obviously uninhabited and seldom visited. The spent shell cases and concrete bunkers are reminders of the regular khaki war games. What makes this place worth the visit is the presence of several water bodies cut off from the sea by a thin shingle bank. They are known as the Brooks. Historical records show that they were once highly attractive to waders, together with the Midrips and Wicks that lie further west. This whole area was well watched after World War Two and h...

Dungeness July 1983 I’ve seen this sort of thing happen at Dungeness before, but not in these numbers. I’m standing on top of the moat looking northwards over the trapping area at a mass of birds circling over the sallow bushes, some 100-200 feet high. Through binoculars we realise that the birds are actively feeding on flying insects and that the flock not only extends further towards the Long Pits than we thought but also considerably higher. The calm, muggy air has created a heat haze and also ensured that although these birds are several hundred yards away we can clearly hear them calling – the odd individual utterance in a mostly silent gathering. Time and space is condensed. There must be 3,000 Black-headed Gulls along with maybe 300 Common Gulls. There are also terns and hirundines to be picked out amongst this larid feeding frenzy. A menacing dark shape has joined them – an Arctic Skua. It benignly snaps for insects along with the gulls that it would so freely hassle over th...

Dungeness May 1983 Today I was literally rendered speechless. You hear about people claiming to have been left speechless but they really don’t mean it, it’s just a turn of phrase. But, as I’ve already said, it has actually happened to me. What caused this? A vision of God? Someone handing me a cheque made out in my name for the sum of a million pounds? No. It was a Black Kite. Admittedly rare, but hardly an apparition to equal an American warbler or colourful Mediterranean overshoot. I’d better explain.  A certain tense build up to me seeing the bird and the fact that I am in the grip of a particularly strong bout of ‘Dungeness Fever’ led to an outpouring of relief and wonder. After all, large raptors are powerful, stunning birds at the best of times. Black Kites are never twitched, they just pick a chosen few and fly by onto selected life lists. We’d arrived at the observatory mid-morning and stared into a grey, cool sky. A Hoopoe was knocking about but little else seemed ...