Yesterday, news came in that there was a Puffin on the water with the Guillemots, which flew off towards Dancing Ledge. So a priority today was to get down to the clifftop and have a squizz. But first, as it was a nice morning, I walked out onto South Field to have a listen to the Skylarks. Yesterday in South Field there was a bit of an aerial battle going on between a Red Kite and 3 Carrion Crows. This was the first Red Kite I have seen and what a big bird it was. Unlike a Buzzard who would shy away from confrontation with a Crow, this Red Kite was getting stuck into the aggressors. Alas, no Red Kite this morning!
Heading down my current favourite path for a morning walk, Diagonal Path, you could hear from the top a Shag bathing, it was so calm. It was scuttling along, beating its wings into the sea, time and time again, freshening up for the new week. As this is my first spring here on the park, I am still trying to tune my ear into all the bird calls, as there is a lot more variety here than my previous location, Avon Heath. I find this path to have a great variety of birds contained in a small area and a lot of passage too. First I was greeted by a Whitethroat, then 2 Linnet, who were being quite noisy on top of some bramble. Scanning the top of the lower vegetation, a Long Tailed Tit, all plumped up, sat by itself, with a Blackbird as a neighbour. Deeper in the vegetation I could hear the kiss like call of a Blackcap and in the distance, the obvious 2 tone call of a Chiffchaff, who was chiffchaffing away! Up in the Goat Plot was a male Roe Deer, its brittle antlers all twisted but still very grand. He had a black patch above his nose and from the front, as it watched me watching him, it looked like a little moustache, peppered with green foliage hanging off his snout! A small ‘charm’ of Goldfinch pass over and on top of some Common Gorse further down, was it a Dartford Warbler? No, it was a Wren! Turning left onto the Clifftop trail I stop to take in the majestic flight of about 5 Fulmar, gliding effortlessly in and out of view. A Rock Pipit passes overhead and to my side a Greenfinch clutches onto the top of some Hawthorn. Then I hear a fabulously manic call and watch a Lesser Whitethroat vanish into some dense undergrowth. But today there was no Puffin!