Another wet morning, but despite the fact that the meadows are feeling like a pond in places, around the woodland and clifftop there is a thrilling sense of the coming spring.
Guillemots and Razorbills straggle across the water below the ledges – as breeding season approaches, they are spending more and more time here.
Above them Fulmars carve smooth arcs, hurtling in towards the cliffs, before swerving aside with just inches to spare, with effortless mastery.
Great Black-backed Gulls are also on the wing, dwarfing the Fulmars around them, while a Shag flaps back into the cliffs, with an ambitious beakful of twigs and seaweed – as early breeders, they already have nests on the go.
Just below the Globe, a rather bedraggled Raven perches on the clifftop wall, allowing me within just a couple of metres before taking to the air and giving me a real sense of the size of the bird.
Stopping at the Observation Point to look down to the water, I was surprised to see a Roe Deer, it’s antlers covered in ‘velvet’, looking up at me, before bounding away along the very edge of the cliffs and away into the scrub above the coast path.
Ivy-leaved Toadflax, scrambling up the dry-stone walls is now covered with purple and white flowers, with the unusual leaves of Wood Sage also pushing up through the clifftop turf.
Plenty of other spring flowers starting to appear in the woodland, including Primroses, Snowdrops, Daffodils, Lesser Celandine and Spring Crocuses to name just a few.
Sweet Bay is also covered in round white flower-buds, while a Bullace near the top of the road to the Lighthouse is covered with an explosion of white flowers.