After some heavy early morning showers, by the time I had made it up the hill, bright sunshine blazes from a blue sky streaked with high cloud and the sea glitters with countless shards of reflected golden light.
The morning rounds accompanied by the jangling calls of many hundreds of Goldfinches passing overhead, their crimson and gold feathers looking magnificent in the morning sunshine.
The ‘seeps’ of Redwing also heard this morning, with a flock of a dozen or so seen above Long Meadow – birds newly arrived from Scandinavia, to spend the winter here. Meanwhile, Swallows continue to head south, with 10 seen during my hours walk – their autumn migration a series of diminishing waves, sometimes continuing into December. The sickle-shaped silhouette of a Peregrine Falcon causes a chatter of alarm as it passes through.
High overhead, the calls of a few Redpoll and Siskin can be heard, with a couple of flocks of Woodpigeon also on the move, one passing just above my head at the Observation Point, with a clattering of wings.
As the sun warms the scrub below the Caravan Terrace bridge, birds start to emerge from the tangle of Bryony and Old Man’s Beard. A Goldcrest, it’s bright yellow ‘Mohican’ highlighted by the sun darts among the canopy of Sycamore above me, as Blue and Great Tits, Long-tailed Tits, Robins and Wrens forage among the scrub.
In the Dell, the flowers of Flowering Cherry and Fuschia stand out among the green of Horsetail and Bramble, with Crab Apples covered in golden fruit.
More colour among the autumnal woodland, with the bright orange seeds of Stinking Iris forming dense stands in places, beneath a canopy of sulphur-yellow Sycamore leaves.
Near the top of a Monterey Cypress, a Raven croaks, with the shrieks of Jays heard, as they pull acorns greedily from the branches of Holm Oaks.