The beautiful green and blue feathers of a Blue Tit are spotted moving through the now leafy scrub: Where fresh green leaves have appeared upon the Willow and Hawthorn. The fruitwoods Apple and Blackthorn are now covered in delightful white flowers, and a lone flowering Forsythia adds a brilliant splash of yellow to the patchwork of colour.
Gentle song emanates from the trees nearby: Tunes from Blackcap, Great Tit and Robin chiming together, with quicker bursting Wren calls, and continuous ‘see-sawing’ Chiffchaff. Chirps from the Blue Tit, ‘churring’ Great Tit, and high-pitched piping from a Long-tailed Tit.
I step under the woodland canopy, bare Ash and Sycamore branches still allowing the dappled sunlight to filter through. It awakens the ground flora which sprout through crunchy leaf litter: Lords and Ladies scattered across the carpet of Ivy, with stands of Stinking Iris in between. The spotted basal leaves of Early Purple Orchids have appeared, though spikes yet to form
In the meadow beyond, the most delightful stand of Cowslips I’ve seen, with an abundant mass of flowers all coupled up together in a single bouquet. The nearby Daffodils now beginning to fade, but replaced by the nodding Bluebells.
Towards the clifftop, a noisy Raven is making its presence known, with a sequence of disgruntled croaks. Fulmar dance in flight above a raft of some 200 Guillemot floating on the water. Razorbills fewer in number, mixed amongst them.
Jackdaws perch amongst the Tamarisk. Their wings fluttering through the ferny fronds, before scattering to the sky. They join the soaring flights of Woodpigeon, and Herring Gull which patrol along the coast