An unexpectedly bright start to the day, with a gusty easterly breeze making the meadow grasses dance and sends ripples and waves across a sea of yellow Cowslips.
Walking in through Tasker’s meadow, a fuzzy, round-bodied Bee Fly sips nectar from Cowslip flowers with it’s long proboscis, hovering among a dense swarm of Early Purple Orchids, their leaves looking as if they have been spattered with ink. Green-winged Orchids (a little smaller and more purple and without the black spots) are also in bloom, with a pure white flowered mutant near the Lighthouse.
One of the best years I can remember for Early Spider Orchids, with over 2,000 counted by our volunteers in one field alone!
Skylarks pour their rapturous, breathless song into the air above the meadows, where the hedgerows bustle with Blue Tits, Great Tits, Whitethroats, Chiffchaffs, Greenfinches and Goldfinches.
Lovely to see a Yellowhammer perched on the top branches of a Hawthorn above the Gully (“with head of solid Gold”) – a much less common bird in our countryside than it used to be.
On the Diagonal Path, a Wall butterfly rests in a sheltered patch of sunshine, with Speckled Woods on the wing along the Woodland Trail, along with the first Holly Blue I have seen here this year. A tiny Bush Cricket nymph perches in the centre of a Bulbous Buttercup, with a pair of mating Lesser Bloody-nose Beetles found nearby.
Along the cliffs, Guillemots and Razorbills bob on the waves below the ledges, which are crowded with birds, along with the first few eggs. Fulmars carve through the air in smooth arcs, as a Jackdaw pulls of an amazing aerial display – looping the loop and stalling mid-air, before nonchalantly landing on the clifftop.
Pink Thrift is starting to bloom along the cliff edge, while in the shelter of the Blackthorn scrub, the strange flowers of Cuckoo Pint are in bloom.