The sunshine blasting through the grey cloud, first time for a while I’ve seen a bit of a sunrise, so a bright start.
Down Long Meadow the Christmas Robins – part of our children’s trail - adding a festiveness to the mostly brown hedgerow. A Spindle tree, although leafless, still has a few pink berries on them.
With the sun shining on the cliffs the Guillemots were showing better than of late, the black and white colour contrasting. However it was the growling and gargling noises coming up from below that alerted me to their presence initially.
A Gannet glide past, the sunlight glinting on its wings turning them an orange colour.
The hedgerows are mostly bare of leaves, but this allows the bright red berries of the Dog Roses to stand out, these hips full of seeds and looking most attractive and Christmassy with the fluffy cream coloured wisps of Old Man’s Beard behind!
A Great Tit was churring from amongst the rambling Wild Madder, and Blue Tits nipping between the twigs of the Hawthorn.
A squawking Jay floated between the Ash and Field Maple, to me these birds always look like they are so light as they fly, not like the rest of the corvid family which seem to have to work harder to fly! In the Black Pine a few Carrion Crows cawed loudly, by the woodland edge Jackdaws tumbles acrobatically and over across Durlston Bay a Raven passed by.
Just outside the ranger’s office a Kestrel landed on the aerial, perched peering around, before fluffing out its feathers and doing a bit of preening.
Last night as the sun went down – the sky turned a lovely shade of pink just above the horizon (not many sunsets for a while), and in the Holm Oaks above me a Tawny Owl hooted.