A breezy start to the day, as the wind roars among the canopy of Holm Oak, Sycamore, Ash and London Plane in the woodland, hissing through the leaves and rattling twigs or making the dry grasses in the meadows roar like the sea.
Flowers dance in the breeze among an ocean of bronze and gold grasses, with bright red spikes of Curled Dock standing out among the more muted colours, along with tall white Ox-eye Daisies and dark Purple Common Knapweed.
Below them the sturdier stems of Wild Carrot support large white flowerheads, many occupied by red and black Solider Beetles and Thick-kneed Flower Beetles, clinging on for dear life!
Despite the wind, in quiet corners of the meadows, Marbled Whites, Meadow Browns, Gatekeepers and Six-spot Burnet Moths are on the wing, with the songs of Meadow and Field Grasshoppers somehow cutting through the breeze.
On the downland, tall yellow Wild Parsnip, Greater Knapweed, Yarrow and Woolly Thistle tower above patches of Red Bartsia, Ladies Bedstraw, Wild Thyme and pink and white striped Restharrow. On the shortest turf, large swathes of Squinancywort are studded with Picnic (or Stemless) Thistle (so called because it’s the one you always sit on while having a picnic!).
Above the Lighthouse Field 2 Kestrels hunt, on opposite sides of the Gully, somehow managing to balance on the gusty wind, as a Raven, feathers ruffled by the breeze perches on top of the Mile Marker.
Surprisingly, still a handful of Guillemots on the lower ledge, though now only 26 left (from a peak of 380), enjoying a little peace and quiet now the ‘kids’ have left home, before they return to sea for the winter.
While working in the Castle yesterday, it was lovely to meet a visitor from Sweden, who had stumbled across our website and become of regular reader of the Rangers Diary and who was excited to visit and see it all for real for the first time!