NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Green Woodpecker at Priest Hill this morning, just before three Stonechats started leaping about in front of me just as the camera battery died... schoolboy error! Well that's already one twelfth of 2015 gone and one month into my 'inner uber patch challenge' against Northumberland's very own Stewart Sexton. The bare facts are that I have recorded 65 species that equates to 72.2% of my target. The latest addition was a female Blackcap that came to fat balls in the garden this afternoon. But numbers do not tell the story in any satisfactory way. I have thoroughly enjoyed this 'very local' birding. I have forced myself (not too much of a chore) to cover areas that I have previously considered to be bird less and not worthy of effort. I have gone back to check on other areas that has seen me visit them more often in the past month than I had in the previous twelve. Even after over forty years of birding it is a joy to discover that I can still get excited by...

Not wanting to wish time away, but I'm getting a bit fed up with the cold, the dark and the impoverished wildlife that we currently have to search through. So, as an appetiser for those months that deliver with bounteous variety, here's an image that I took at Marden in Kent several summers ago - Green-winged Orchids in their thousands! Hidden amongst them were a few Adder's-tongues, plus a pond full of Water Violets. If we could have sound then we would be serenaded by the buzz of the meadow. Cannot wait...

Walton Downs - possibly an old sheep drove. We walk on hallowed ground. Crossing downland, farmland or woodland by foot we are largely following in the footsteps of those who have gone before us. Worn paths in the chalk, muddy strips along field edges, canopied byways through strips of copse that all tell of the gentle human history that has created them. In my part of northern Surrey, particularly along the North Downs ridge, we walk along in the ghostly footsteps of pilgrims, we shadow the movements of shepherds, farmhands and others just like us, those who wanted to commune with nature. We largely see what they saw, even in this crowded part of Britain. Some of the trees that look down on us looked down on them. Old collapsed flint walls and abandoned foundations tell of past rural lives, lives now gone, maybe of simpler times. Did they stand in these doorways looking out on Partridges, Barn Owls and Red-backed Shrikes? Did they sharpen their scythes while dreaming of a foaming...

This is Walton Downs, looking south-westward towards Headley. It is a mixture of copse and farmland on chalk. As a birder, looking across this shallow valley, what do you see? I bet that, like me, you are weighing up the chance of seeing a good raptor, maybe a Short-eared Owl or even a Great Grey Shrike. I have walked the footpaths that cross this area many times and can only claim a handful of commoner migrants over the years, but each time I make the journey I still think that I'm going to get rewarded with a notable sighting - it just feels like a place that will harbour something of note. And this approach sums up the lot of a birder working any patch of habitat, wherever that habitat may be. Regardless of our experience telling us that we will fill our notebook with counts of commoner species, there is a big part of us that still maintains that something good will come along, and it might just be on our current visit. It's what drives us on and keeps us focused. It'...

Winter. What, as birders, do we want from this particular season? If it is a hard one, with snow and freezing temperatures on the continent, together with biting easterlies sweeping across the North Sea, we can hope for an influx of wildfowl, thrushes and who know's what else. But as exciting as such times are, the birds will undoubtably suffer. Do we really want that to happen? The flip side is for there to be benign, unremarkable weather - a bit like what we are 'enjoying' in 2014-15. Not too cold, not too wet and not too windy. But with the 'ease' that such weather brings, the birding is largely predictable. Locally it seems as if nothing much has changed since late November. There are few flocks out on the fields but they are unremarkable in number and composition. The finch and thrush numbers are poor - just where are the Redpolls, Siskins and Bramblings? But we carry on looking, we still scan the flocks, and we still skywatch just in case. .. I spent a goo...

The River Hogsmill meanders its way through Ewell Village and is a most enjoyable place to spend a bit of time birding. You can usually bank on seeing Kingfisher and, increasingly, Little Egret. This morning one (of the two reportedly present) was perched in a tree just beyond the Lower Mill. It seemed unconcerned by my attempts at photography as it sunned itself alongside a Grey Heron. It wasn't until a Labrador came bounding up to me that they finally took flight.

One of the pleasures of undertaking a local study, especially one in which there is a hint of competition involved, is that an observation that would ordinarily not mean that much can be elevated to the status of noteworthy. One bird this morning illustrated this very well indeed. I had need to go into Epsom, and from where the car was parked involved a walk through Rosebery Park - right on the very edge of my arbitrary recording area. There is a pond, and half of the water was ice free. Among the Mallards and Canada Geese was a splendid drake Mandarin. I have seen this species here before, and can only assume that the odd one flies in from the ponds on Epsom Common (which is outside of my 2015 recording area). This is not a species that I could have safely predicted for this years study - a nice little bonus. I'm not being greedy, but I am now eager for something a little more exciting - a fly-over Short-eared Owl for example? Evening update: a late afternoon visit to SWT'...