The bright, cold conditions of New Year have shifted to a more typical British winter of low cloud and damp gloom as I arrive for patrol this morning.
Our resident Carrion Crow family are stalking the car park as I arrive, led by matriarch Eagle, nicknamed on account of her leucistic white tail feather.
With the return of less settled weather, the ‘Storm Cock’ is seemingly back in residence in the woodland fringe to the south, the jinxing melody of the Song Thrush a heartening sound in the dark.
The descending chatter of Blue Tits can be heard in the Learning Centre Wildlife Area, while the pleasing burble of Robin and staccato contact calls of Great Tits emanate from the Blackthorn tangle.
Entering Lighthouse Field, a Kestrel braces in the face of the so’westerly, a constant shivering flicker of the small falcon’s wings required to even maintain a steady position.
The Hawthorn thickets in the Southern end of Saxon are busy with bird calls, and I pause for a few minutes, the Merlin app silently sifting through the chorus.
Though the app titillates me with a single notification of ‘Hawfinch’, patience and repetition determines that it’s more likely its smaller, more common cousin the Chaffinch, accompanied by the regularly observed Linnets.
As I approach the head of the Gully, a mottled female Pheasant explodes from the thicket in alarm. Calm is restored as I reach the wooden bridge, though the birdlife is quieter here, only the two-tone contact call of a Great Tit and incessant rattle of Robin heard over the dripping vegetation.
As I begin my return to the Office, a brown-back, bar-tailed female Sparrowhawk lifts from the Bramble, before trimming its wings and dropping down towards the Lighthouse, triggering a rising wave of alarm calls in its wake.