After a week of tempestuous weather, I’m greeted this morning by a faint breeze and a sky washed with orange and mauve, though towering cumulus clouds sailing in from the south-west quickly occlude the glow of dawn and suggest more rain later.
The Learning Centre pond area is entirely bereft of life, but for the rush of a Blackbird bolting into the cover of the Bramble thicket.
The burble of Robin and wheeze of Chaffinch emerge from the Hawthorn as I descend to the Lighthouse track, while a pair of Carrion Crow drift languidly in the calmer air above.
Continuing downhill toward the Horseshoe Bridge, stems of Blackthorn, sharply pointed like organic barbed wire, lay trackside after this week’s brushcutting. The winter-flowering Gorse offers a welcome flash of colour, the unseasonal blooms an adaptation thought to stymie parasitisation.
A hollow ‘clonk’ alerts me to our resident Ravens passing overhead, indulging in their usual acrobatic half-twists for the sheer fun of it.
The Lighthouse Jackdaws wheel and bank, their flinty cries echoing across the Gully below, while Feral Rock Doves power their way back in the direction of Tilly Whim.
Reaching the bridge, a week of heavy rain is reflected in the streamlet now babbling its way down the meltwater-cut ravine.
Wood Pigeons scatter as I lean against the parapet, while the incessant, strident tones of a Great Tit drift down the valley walls.
As I linger, the resident bird life slowly acclimates to my presence. Chaffinchs appear from the drapes of Old Man’s Beard, and the delicate rattles of Blue Tit and dry, single-note call of a Dunnock emerge, until the alarm rattle of a Blackbird resets the clock.
Descending the South West Coast Path to the seaward end of the Gully, the Tilly Whim Whale is in fine form today, blowing pressurised sea mist high into the air with the arrival of each rolling swell.