A fresher feel this morning, with the smell of rain in the air, and the ground a little softer underfoot after yesterday’s showers. Nonetheless, a single patch of intense blue blazes out from among a rolling sea of grey and white clouds.
Despite the breeze and lack of sunshine, the air is still filled with butterflies and moths. Along a hedgerow in Tasker’s Meadow, dozens of Meadow Browns flutter among the hard green berries of Bramble and Hawthorn (with the first glossy berries of Honeysuckle also appearing alongside the peach and white flowers). Their smaller cousins, Gatekeepers are also on the wing in abundance, with red and black 6-Spot Burnet Moths whirring among the meadow grasses, their wings moving so quickly they blur into pink.
While the grasses have mellowed to soft shades of brass and gold, the meadow flowers stand out all the more brightly, with deep Imperial Purple Common Knapweed looking particularly spectacular at the moment. The white discs of Wild Carrot and Corky-fruited Water Dropwort seem to hover above the grasses, while below them, pink and white Restharrow tangles around their stems.
On the downland, the first, huge purple flowers of Woolly Thistle are starting to appear on spiky stems now over a metre tall. On the shorter turf, Ladies and Hedge Bedstraw sprawl, along with pink Wild Thyme, while a patch of Hemp Agrimony is feeding 6 Red Admiral butterflies.
Overhead, Swifts swirl and dive above the Castle, hoovering up ‘aerial plankton’, their sickle-shaped silhouettes looking huge against the grey sky.
Above the Lighthouse Field, a pair of Kestrels keen to each other as they hunt, as a Raven flaps ponderously in to perch on the lower Mile Marker.
Still a few Guillemots (and a chick!) left on the lower ledge, though the cliffs are feeling much quieter as our breeding seabirds return to sea.