Another morning of blue sky and bright sunlight, though the nor’easterly is stronger and fresher than the conditions on my Sunday patrol.
Goldfinch, Chiffchaff and Great Tit flit about in the Buddleia surrounding the pond, and a pair of drinking Wood Pigeon rush away at my appearance in the Bird Hide window.
Mown short ready for picnicking visitors, the lawn outside the Learning Centre still hosts a healthy crop of Lawn Daisies and Buttercups.
The Blackthorn blossom is on its way out, taking with it under the old folk wisdom any risk of any further frosts this season, and it’s now the turn of cousin Hawthorn, though the usually-heavy scent holds little purchase in the stiff breeze.
Heading west along the Herston Trail, a clump of trackside Birds-foot Trefoil glows in the sunshine. I hear the wheezing contact call of Chaffinch and scratching of Whitethroat from the tangle of Bramble and up ahead, a Jay shrieks from atop a wind-sculpted thorn tree.
Offshore, a Gannet glides west, allowing the wind to do the work, while a pair of Jackdaw race down the Gully ahead, one of the compact corvids displaying a flash of leucistic white on its wing, a trait more often visible on our resident Carrion Crow family.
By the gate into Saxon Field, a male Blackbird balances precariously on a swaying Sycamore sapling, while in the shelter of the drystone wall ahead, a pair of Goldfinch pluck at the feathery seeds of a Dandelion, and the ray-gun call of a Lesser Whitethroat fires out from the scrub.
Skirting the edge of Ox-Eye Field, an unfamiliar flower draws me to the path edge, the pink pyramidal bloom of Sainfoin distinct against the more commonplace scattering of Cowslips.
On my return leg, I pause by the pleached Hawthorn hedge in South Field, regenerating well after being laid last winter. The rapid rattle of an agitated Blackcap emerges from the hedgeline, though prompted by my presence or a wild predator, I cannot tell.