NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Last month, my friend Jack suggested that we go and see a Rolling Stones tribute band called 'Rollin' Stoned'. I went along not expecting too much and had a brilliant evening. So when he suggested that we go and see 'The Move' this evening, I readily agreed. After all, what's not to like about seeing people dressing up in kaftans, wigs and shades pretending to be Roy Wood? But on arrival at the venue I was genuinely surprised (and excited) to find out that this was no tribute act - it was the genuine article - still boasting two founder members - Bev Bevan and Trevor Burton. They were joined by a trio of additional Brummies - Phil Tree, Tony Kelsey and Abby Brant. The audience was largely comprised of blokes over 50, (overweight, bald, bad dress sense), with the odd wife or girlfriend in tow, who were looking around them wondering if they had stumbled into a convention of blokes whose sole connection was being on the sex offenders register. In fact in reminded...

And I thought that I could 'go off on one'... If you haven't already read his posts about BBC's Springwatch , please visit Paul Trodd's Plovers blog ( click here ) to be thoroughly entertained and schooled in the ways of 'rant'. I couldn't do better myself! I hope he carries on with his analysis of the presenters presentation skills, the dumbing-down of natural history and the sheer joy that only middle-aged men in grumpy moods can give to others who are just like them. Just ignore the Blyth's Reed Warbler grip-off!

Fly Orchid at Yockletts Bank in Kent - one of the better ones 665. The number of Bee-eaters that Martin Casemore has missed at Dungeness this spring? How many managers Tottenham Hotspur have employed in the past 10 years? Or is it the number of plant species that I have taken photographs of in the UK? Yes, proving that I've got more time on my hands than is healthy, I counted up the number of plant species that I've photographed across the UK. Most (but not all) are half-decent, some have come out rather well and a few of them are just record shots (have you tried taking a photograph in pouring rain and force 6 winds on top of a Scottish mountain?) With thousands of images just resting on a hard-disk, waiting to be opened and looked at irregularly, I thought it would be worthwhile letting them out into the big wide world. So, if you (or somebody you know) wants to use any of them for personal means, to illustrate a talk or presentation, or just use as wallpaper for y...

It's been some time since I've posted what could be described as an 'angry' post. There would always be something that had 'got my goat', annoyed me or something would happen that I would then consider to be preposterous. Try as hard as I can, there's nothing at the moment that is bothering me. And this is after two weeks being spent in the company of that most weird branch of humanity, the birder... I know, I am one of them too. Is this a sign of contentment? Mellowing with age? Running out of ideas? Maybe. But there is one area that has helped me to find a sense of calm and that is reorganising my Twitter account. Some time ago I was following 200-300 people, mainly birders from southern England. I did this to get a good feed of breaking bird news. Maybe 50% of the tweets I received were relevant to that aim, with another 20% being re-tweets of what I had already read and the remaining 30% a combination of drivel, inane humour and bollocks. A lot of th...

Rare moths With a few scarce migrants being trapped just to the north-east of the peninsula, the MV traps sited at Dungeness might have been expected to also come up with the goods. They largely didn't, except for Barry Banson's which produced a single Striped Hawk-moth and this Dusky Hook-tip - his third - greedy beggar! Stinking Hawk's-beard This hairy pendulous bud might look fairly unimportant, but it belongs to one of the rarest plants in the UK - Stinking Hawk's-beard. At its only wild locality I was lucky enough to be invited along to see it by the owners of the land on which this plant has made home. Their anonymity is preserved to ensure that they do not have a constant flow of botanical twitchers to their door. I spent a lovely half hour in their company being told a bit about the steps that are taken to ensure that the species has a sympathetic habitat in which to survive. Ring rusty I called the gull above as an Iceland before being corrected...

Today illustrated a couple of things - how chance plays a large part in what you see, and also how a late spring day can provide but a handful of migrants whose rarity composition can be disproportionately high. I was sea-watching by 05.30hrs, due to the knowledge that several Pomarine Skuas had been seen west of Dungeness yesterday. It was really no surprise when a single flew east at 05.35hrs - a good start. I recorded a further 11 birds (1, 3, 3 and 4), the last flock including a dark-phase bird. Most were close and oozed class and menace, the only way that this species can. As back up there were 4 Arctic Skuas. By 08.30hrs all had slowed, so I left my fellow sea-watchers and headed to the observatory for a spot of breakfast. Now 'luck' or 'chance' played its hand... I was ready to check out the pits at Scotney when Dave Walker showed me a micro moth which he wanted to see if my identification matched his own. This was a hand lens and book job, so I settled down...

After an evening of football, Neil Young, beer, music, olives, garlic, chilli and pasta (thanks Mark!) this morning needed to be on the tranquil side. A botanical foray was called for and I was joined by Nick and Russell Gardner on a whistle-stop tour of the floral wonders of the peninsula. The observatory area yielded plenty of Yellow Vetch, Subterranean Clover and Nottingham Catchfly, whilst further out on the shingle there was plenty of Bur Chervil and Small-flowered Buttercup. A small amount of Sea Pea was in flower close to the new lighthouse. Littlestone was checked for several specialities, although it is stil early for some of them, hence only a few leaves of Sea Holly and no Sea Rocket (although we shunned the best area for this as it was knee-deep in grockles on the beach). Best of all was a fine show of at least 300 plants of Sand Catchfly (above), the raking of the site to encourage seed germination by Owen and his team paying dividends. Hare's-tail Grass wa...